Connections At Work
by mandrake-o
Summary: Piper is fed up with Chris' lack of love life, so she sends Bianca to attack him in an unauthorised matchmaking attempt. But Piper might not be the only one manipulating their lives. Changed future fic.
1. Chapter 1

**Connections At Work**

**Author's Note:** This is probably the most cohesive story I've written since _The Harm in Trying_ and is dedicated to everyone who doesn't hate Bianca. This is supposedly a romance and I am terrible at writing them, so don't expect too much. Plus this is my first Charmed story so it might be a little off-canon.

Chapter 1

Piper Halliwell watched her second son forlornly as he stood in front of the Book of Shadows, telekinetically flipping the pages. He was a grown man, now. Older even than the first time she met him. Thirty-five years old and just the same as he was at twenty-two.

His brother had long ago settled down, providing Piper with her first granddaughters. Most of Chris' cousins were married now, and though it made Piper feel old, she loved her grand-nieces and nephews. Paige's youngest two, the twins, were in half-Cupid approved relationships, though they weren't married yet. Even Piper's own youngest, three years older than the twins, had provided her with a grandson, though not, as Piper would have preferred, with her current husband.

It was only Chris who remained stubbornly single. Not only that, he hadn't dated anybody in a very long time. It wasn't that he was so old that Piper worried for him. It was that he didn't seem to be trying. These days he never seemed to have any time for himself. He was too similar to the Chris they'd met before he was born. This Chris lived in a world balanced more in the side of good's favour, so why did he seem to think it would all turn around in a second?

Chris was always so serious, and always thinking about somebody else. He made his mortal living as a doctor at a hospital, following in his father's footsteps. He was always looking for magical causes so that he could help people magically, after learning the hard way that non-magical cases couldn't be cured magically. He was all business all the time. That was what really had Piper worried.

Piper and her sisters had always wanted normal lives outside of saving people, but Chris had never wanted that. He lived his life as though it was falling apart around him and he was desperately trying to hold it up. It was hard to get Chris to stay still for a minute, and you could only force him to pay attention with a long logical explanation. Emotions weren't enough to cut it. He showed up at family gatherings, but more for them than for himself. He slept and ate only because he knew he couldn't function well enough to help people if he didn't. Through everything he thought about other people... and never himself.

Chris got the eureka look and orbed out. Never once had he noticed his mother watching him. Piper sighed. Something had to be done. She went across the street to Phoebe's house to see Coop.

x x x

Coop had retired from being a cupid once his youngest became one full time. The elder two girls embraced their witch sides more than their cupid ones, so Cathy was the only one. Coop had realised that if he wanted to live a full life with Phoebe, he'd have to age with her, too. He would die, but reasoned that he'd never wanted to live forever anyway. He'd never thought about it before, but it made sense now.

"Can't you, or Cathy, actually, take him to see his past loves like you did with Phoebe?" Piper asked Coop as they sat at the kitchen table with mugs of cocoa.

"To do that, Chris would have had to have loved someone. He never has and that's why it's never worked out," Coop explained.

"Really?" This was worse than Piper had thought. "Not even Marguerite?" Marguerite had been Chris' girlfriend the longest. She was the best friend of one of his earliest whitelighter charges. Piper had seen Chris and Marguerite together and thought there was something between them. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on her part. Marguerite was a lovely person.

Coop shook his head. "I still had powers back then. Chris didn't love her, and she didn't love him."

"And we're never going to be able to set him up on a date again."

All three of Coop's children had had their chance to set Chris up with someone, but he never stuck around long enough to get to know someone well enough to fall in love with her. After showing them it wouldn't work, he'd said that he would never do it again. He'd stuck to that since, not even agreeing to double date with Wyatt when his brother desperately needed someone.

Sometimes Piper wondered if maybe Chris was gay. Wyatt had teased him often enough when they were teenagers that Piper had made an effort to make sure he knew he'd still be accepted in the family if he was. But Chris never looked twice at a man, and still occasionally slept with women (one thing Piper wished she didn't know about her son).

"Sometimes," said Coop. "I think the only way he'll ever notice is if a demon comes after him."

"No," Piper shook her head. "I've never seen him bat an eyelash when they've tried to seduce him. Even the ones who didn't want to kill him. It's like he knows it's all fake. He's never gone out with one even though it's practically a family tradition."

Besides Chris, Phoebe's daughters were the only ones who had never dated a demon. Henry Jr was currently in a long term relationship with one. They weren't biologically compatible, so they could never have children, but the Halliwells knew that the only reason why they weren't already married was because Xita didn't believe in marriage. She didn't think you needed to put a name on staying with someone for the rest of your life. For all intents and purposes, they were married.

The Halliwells had long ago gotten over their xenophobia regarding demons. Sure, most of their relationships with demons hadn't worked out, but they'd come close to making friends with a lot of them. These days they'd only kill a demon if they tried to kill them first and if the demon was being sent to kill them, they would go after the one pulling the strings first, letting the hired help make their own decision once they were no longer being threatened or bribed.

Piper continued her thought. "You can't get his attention by being a damsel in distress, either. He's too much of a whitelighter and refuses to get involved. The only way to get his attention is to attack him."

Coop raised an eyebrow. "So you're going to set him up by having someone attack him?"

Coop had meant it as a joke, but Piper saw merit in the suggestion. "That's it!"

"You aren't seriously considering sending someone after your son."

"Not just anyone," said Piper. "Bianca."

"Bianca?" Coop couldn't remember having heard of this person before.

"She's a Phoenix. The only reason why I'm really so worried about Chris is because when he came back to us in 2003, he was engaged. Phoebe felt that he was in love with her and that she broke his heart. That means he was capable of loving her, of wanting to make a lifelong commitment. He just hasn't yet and maybe that's because he hasn't met her."

"How did they meet last time?"

"That's the thing," said Piper. "She attacked him. He told me that she'd been sent to kill him. She didn't succeed and he managed to turn her away from working for Wyatt. We just have to get her to do it again."

"You're insane," said Coop.

Piper shrugged. "Maybe. But what can it hurt?"

"They could kill each other."

"I'll tell her not to kill him. And if she doesn't try, neither will he."

"And what could you possibly give her that she'd want?" Coop continued trying to talk her out of it, not realising that every flaw he pointed out would only help her come up with a better plan. "It would have to be something big to make her want to keep him alive."

Again, Piper shrugged. "I'll think of something. She's definitely not going to want to kill him if she's not paid."

Coop shook his head. "I can't condone this. If you go through with this I'm going to tell Chris."

Piper frowned. "Really, Coop? You're a cupid and you're going to stop my son from finding love?"

"I'm not giving up on him. I'm exercising patience."

"It's the only way," said Piper.

"No, Piper."

Piper exhaled. "Fine," she lied. "I promise I won't."

"Thank you."

Piper left the house soon after, and shook her head. There was no way she was keeping that promise. She had to do it even if it meant keeping it a secret from everyone. Now she just had to figure out how to do it without personal gain consequences.

x x x

Eventually Piper justified to herself that it wasn't personal gain because Chris' well-being was important to every innocent he was trying to protect. And, she wasn't doing this for herself. She was so sure of her reasoning that she found herself summoning Bianca that evening and wondering why she'd never tried this before; never tried to find Bianca before. Piper guessed it was because she'd never been this worried about her son before.

The Phoenix witch stared out of the crystal cage as though she was seeing things. "What did I do to deserve the wrath of a Charmed One?" she asked. Bianca had always been sure to only take on jobs that wouldn't call the attention of powerful witches.

"Nothing," said Piper. In situations like these it was important to appear bored and confident, though inside Piper was bubbling with excitement, thinking she'd finally be able to get her son on the right path. "Not yet, anyway. I have a job for you."

"_You_ have a job for _me_?" Bianca was obviously sceptical.

"Phoenix witches are neutral, right? You'll take a job from anyone willing to pay."

"And what would you pay?" asked Bianca.

"I'm sure I can find something you'd like." Secretly, Piper was hoping that Bianca would fall in love with her son and be so thankful that she wouldn't demand payment. On second thought, that was absolutely ridiculous.

Bianca still wasn't sure, but was curious to find out. "What is it, then? What demon is there that you can't deal with yourself?"

"Oh it's not a demon," said Piper. "And I'd actually prefer it if you didn't kill him."

"Not kill him?" Bianca raised an eyebrow. "What part of 'assassin' don't you understand? Let me guess: the 'ass' part?"

Piper rolled her eyes. That was the sort of stupid joke Chris and Wyatt were both prone to making. "I need you to attack my son."

Bianca smirked. "I get it now. You aren't Piper Halliwell, are you? She'd never send anyone to kill her son."

Frustrated, Piper blew up the Phoenix, then crossed her arms over her chest. "Satisfied?" she asked once Bianca had reformed.

Bianca's mood was definitely worsened by her molecular disturbance. "I'm not doing it," she said outright. "Having the twice-blessed after me is not worth anything you could possibly give me."

Piper frowned. People were always underestimating Chris just because magic didn't stop the day he was born, and because he wasn't Excalibur's heir, or in any other way prophesied. It wasn't just because she loved her boys equally that she thought their powers were equal; she knew it. Maybe Wyatt had more powers, but that didn't make him a stronger, better witch. Chris was Wyatt's equal in every way save age and height. In every way that mattered.

"I have another son, you know?" said Piper. "Chris."

Bianca shook her head. "That's worse. That one never lets up."

Worse? thought Piper. Bianca was definitely the girl for her son. Chris still had an inferiority complex when it came to Wyatt. He needed a woman who would inspire self-worth in him. Bianca seemed like just the right one.

More determined than ever, Piper explained further. "You only need to attack him. One hit, non-fatal. Whenever you feel like it. As long as it's clearly non-lethal, he'll come after you, but he won't try to kill you. You'll evade him and maybe he won't even catch you. If he does, just tell him I sent you and he'll come after me."

"Is he going to believe that? I don't believe it and you're right in front of me."

"He will if I give you something to prove it. Name your price, Bianca. I know you want to do it. It's a challenge: pitting your wits against Chris Halliwell's with no repercussions. You won't even have to kill anyone."

Bianca was suspicious. "How do you know I don't enjoy committing murder?"

Because Chris told me, thought Piper. "You're neutral," she said instead. "Not evil. It means you think about the consequences."

Bianca continued to eye Piper with suspicion. "What do you get out of this?"

"I need to force a confrontation with my son," was her cover story. "I want to prove to him that a magical attack is the only way to get his attention these days. He's very single-minded, I want that to stop."

Bianca didn't entirely understand, but she bought it. "What do I get, then?"

"Well," said Piper. "I'm guessing you don't want money."

"You wouldn't have enough money," said Bianca. "In these cases I usually take magical artefacts as payment. I have quite the athame collection."

Remembering Bianca pressing one to her neck, Piper believed it. She walked over to the potions cupboard and selected a ready-made one to show Bianca. "Power of three blessed vanquishing potion. You can't always enjoy the chase and this will get the job done quickly and efficiently."

"You think one little potion is enough for this?"

"Two?" ventured Piper.

"Try five," said Bianca. "And whatever you give me to prove to your son that you're after him, I get to keep."

"Three and a protection amulet," bargained Piper.

"Done," Bianca agreed. "Now will you let me out of this cage?"

Piper rolled her eyes and kicked a stone out of place with her foot. She was not surprised to find an athame pressed against her neck the next second.

"This had better not be a trap," Bianca warned before dropping her weapon.

Piper reached around her neck, pulling a crystal triquetra from against her skin. Chris had made it for her a long time ago and she never thought she'd part with it. But this was important, and if Bianca was who Piper thought she was, there was no one she'd rather pass it on to. "You can take this now. Just don't let him see it when you attack him. You'll get the potions once you've attacked him."

"Don't you want to wait until you've got your confrontation?"

Piper shook her head. "If he doesn't catch you I'll consider that proof that he's not just about magic." And that there's nothing left to be done about his romantic life.

Bianca nodded. "I'll be back." She shimmered out.

Piper turned to leave the attic, but saw Leo blocking the doorway. "Was that Bianca I just saw?" he questioned.

Piper had no idea how she was going to get herself out of this one. "Was it? I think she just shimmered into the wrong house. She was gone before I got a good look at her."

"So you've been up here for the past hour doing what exactly?"

Piper sagged, seeing that Leo wasn't going to let it go. "Okay, fine. I'm worried about Chris."

Leo put two and two together. "Honey you know you have to let him make his own decisions. You can't force him to be with somebody."

"What's the harm in a little matchmaking? He loved her before, why not now? Maybe she's the reason why he never settled down. Maybe now he will."

Leo couldn't be mad at her for trying to mother their son. "I just hope you took personal gain into account."

"Of course," said Piper.

"You're lucky it was me who saw you up here and not Chris."

"I know he has a night shift," said Piper.

"And when has that ever stopped him from popping back here to look up a demon?" asked Leo.

At that moment, Chris orbed in and looked at his parents. "Talking about me again?"

Piper recovered from her surprise quickly. "We're your parents. It's our job."

Chris rolled his eyes. "If I'd known you'd be here all the time I never would have suggested that you retire."

"So what's going on?" asked Leo.

"I think the hospital might be haunted," said Chris.

"And it was necessary for you to come back here? It couldn't wait?" asked Piper.

"There are so many people in the hospital. I just needed a moment to myself."

Piper reached up to hug her son. "You're allowed to have time to yourself without the excuse of a demon."

"Ghost," corrected Chris.

"Whatever."

"You're right, but you aren't," said Chris. "The longer it takes me to figure it out, the more innocents who'll be in danger."

"There will always be another innocent, Chris. You can't save them all," said Piper.

"We've tried," added Leo.

"I know, I know. You became an avatar and realised that free will was more important."

Piper looked at Leo. "I think we need new stories."

"Or a son who is less of a smart Alec," suggested Leo.

"I like it," said Piper. "Let's go with that one."

"Cute," Chris commented with another roll of his eyes. "Isn't it past your bedtime, old-timers?"

Piper crossed her arms and prepared to launch into a tirade, but Leo cut her off. "Okay, we can take a hint. We'll get out of your hair." He took Piper's arm and led her out of the attic.

"What was that for?" she demanded of her husband.

"The longer we were in there the more likely he'd wonder what we were doing up there."

"Oh," said Piper, thinking of the broken crystal circle and the Book of Shadows probably still open to the summoning spell she'd used. Why hadn't she cleaned up after herself? She was still holding a vial of vanquishing potion. "I doubt he'll figure it out. he's tracking something and you know how single-minded he can be."

"Come on," said Leo, kissing his wife gently. "Let's go to bed."

x X X x

A/N: I think I'll put this on a five reviews or twenty-four hour publishing schedule. So the more reviews the faster I post, but I'd never hold chapters hostage for reviews.


	2. Chapter 2

**Connections At Work**

**Author's Note:** So, actually I can't promise faster chapters when I get more reviews if I happen to be asleep. But thanks for them anyway!

Chapter 2

Bianca had watched Chris for a week now. She'd had a week of watching him go about his business with clinical efficiency. He was an ER doctor, an expert in trauma. He knew just how to deal with absolutely everything that was thrown his way. He'd sent a ghost into the next world before Bianca had even noticed that it was one. He'd talked the other doctors out of looking further into one witch's injuries as he realised she had been swept into an ambulance before her whitelighter could heal her.

Bianca could do nothing but admire his technique. She was glad that she was undertaking only to attack, not kill him. She was sure she wouldn't be able to succeed, no matter how much practise she had. Few were stupid enough to try these days. There was no way she was going to get away with what she was going to do. She'd never be able to evade him for long.

Instead Bianca worked on how to pull the whole thing off without revealing magic to mortals. Just about everywhere he went he was surrounded by people, or he was at home. It would be stupid to try to attack him on his home turf, even if Piper was home to run interference.

Besides just attacking him, Bianca needed to injure him badly enough to stop him from immediately following her. The only way Bianca could imagine this working was to stop him from orbing, and possibly from calling any of his whitelighter friends.

Bianca already knew an anti-orbing spell she could cast, and hopefully with it in place over the entire hospital anyone he did call would take too long to find him. Aiming for one of his legs would mean that he wouldn't be able to physically take off after her. She'd just need to make sure that she didn't slice into an artery. He'd bleed out before anyone found him. But Bianca had good aim. There would be no chance of her doing anything more than causing temporary pain easily healed by a whitelighter.

Wanting to get this over with, Bianca checked the roster for Chris' next shift and planned to make her move then. She'd worked out that he orbed home from the same place every day. As cautious as he was when concerned for other people's safety, he didn't seem to take his own so seriously. He chose a place unwatched by anyone, so it would be easy for her to attack him without exposing magic. She just had to wait until he got there.

x x x

By the time Chris was finishing his next shift, Bianca had scrapped the idea of injuring him in the hospital. Instead when he reached his orbing spot, she grabbed him and quickly shimmered him in to the middle of a hedge maze in a park near the Golden Gate Bridge. She'd cast the anti-orbing spell over the maze earlier, and now he couldn't orb away, not that Bianca was expecting him to just yet. Chris would stick around to gather more details before trying to get away.

She didn't want to make it too easy for him to come after her, so she'd covered her Phoenix birthmark with a leather cuff and planned to leave a stolen athame behind. She conjured it, and stabbed his thigh before he could regain his footing. With the knife in place to stop the bleeding, Bianca had no doubt he'd survive. Even if he did nothing, he'd still be alive by the time she spoke to his mother and she would make sure that he was okay.

Bianca found herself actually caring that he'd survive, and not only because Piper wouldn't pay her if he didn't. She wanted him to keep doing what he was doing. There was a lot of scum in the underworld that Bianca wouldn't mind never seeing again. So long as he didn't go after her regulars, she could be glad of his existence.

As she stabbed him, Chris looked up at her with his big green eyes and said one thing: "Bianca." He gasped out her name and the Phoenix thought she should have hidden her face. Why hadn't she thought that he would know her? Piper had known who she was well enough to be able to summon her. Of course her magic obsessed son would know.

Bianca drew back from him quickly and shimmered away before he could use his telekinesis to make her stay. Bianca re-materialised in the underworld a few times to throw him off her scent, then went to the Halliwell manor to see Piper.

x x x

Piper was in the kitchen preparing dinner when Bianca arrived.

"It's done," Bianca announced, looking around the kitchen.

Piper turned from the sauce she'd been stirring. "So where is Chris?"

Bianca explained about the maze and the anti-orbing spell.

Piper was impressed. "Okay," she said, reaching into a hidden cupboard and withdrawing three vials of potion. "They'll only work on demons," she said. "I don't want anyone else's blood on my hands."

"Whatever," said Bianca. "Just don't summon me again."

"That I can agree to," said Piper. But she hoped it wouldn't be the last time she'd see Bianca. "Have a nice life."

Bianca shimmered out of the kitchen. Once she was gone, Piper knocked another vial of vanquishing potion onto the floor where it left a scorch mark. "Wyatt!" Piper called.

Her eldest appeared with his brother. Both looked completely healthy.

"Oh good, you're both all right."

"Why wouldn't we be?" asked Chris suspiciously.

"A demon just attacked," said Piper, indicating the mark on the floor. "Just before I blew him up he said something about Chris."

Chris looked up. "I was just attacked by a Phoenix."

"A phoenix?" Piper feigned ignorance. "I thought that was one of those magical creatures that doesn't exist."

"Not the bird," said Chris. "The witch. Phoenixes are assassin witches with demonic powers."

"Even I know that," added Wyatt.

"Did you?" Piper didn't believe it.

"Only since I told him after he healed me," said Chris. "Luckily she left behind an athame so I can scry for her." He held it up to show Piper.

Piper frowned. What had Bianca been thinking? Chris was going to figure this out too soon. Piper began thinking through what she was going to say to Chris when he confronted her. She turned back to the stove to stall. "Dinner will be ready soon if you boys want to join your father and me."

"Sounds great, mom," said Wyatt, walking over to examine the sauce.

"Chris?" asked Piper.

He was deep in thought, wondering what sort of game the Phoenix witch was playing. She could have tried to kill him, but she didn't. She just left the athame behind like some sort of message. "Huh?"

"Dinner?" said Piper.

"Uh yeah, okay." He probably wasn't aware of what he was agreeing to, but now Piper could hold him to it. She needed a little more time before Chris came after her.

x x x

That night, Chris stood in the attic by the Book of Shadows, looking for the summoning spell that worked on witches if you knew their names. He'd been surprised to see Bianca earlier. He hadn't thought that she actually existed outside of his dreams. Now that he knew she existed, it made him wonder why she'd been haunting his dreams like a spectre from a forgotten life.

_A forgotten life._ That was it. Why had he never connected Bianca with the other flashes from the life he hadn't lived? Perhaps because his parents had never mentioned her. But they wouldn't have known. In another lifetime he'd loved Bianca and a ghost of the same feeling still lingered over his heart. He'd never loved a woman before, but he knew that this was how love was meant to feel. The way his former self felt about Bianca.

But this Bianca clearly had none of the same feelings as he did. Not even the ghostly ones he had. She had attacked him for some reason- incapacitated him for half an hour as he and Wyatt played Marco Polo through the maze. It reeked of a distraction, or a game of some kind. A quick trip to the underworld had revealed nothing. No one knew who the latest being to contract the Phoenix's services was.

Added up, it seemed easier to summon the witch and question her. And really Chris just wanted to see her again, to examine the lines of her face and compare them to those he'd seen in his sleep. To view again what felt like a dream come to life.

Chris' finger settled on the spell and he quickly created the crystal summoning circle and said the spell evenly, eyeing the spot she'd appear in, wanting to glimpse her the second she materialised. She stood tall and proud before him, clearly used to being summoned. He thought he could see a note of something like admiration in her russet-coloured eyes when she recognised him.

"You work fast," she complimented him.

It only added to her mystery. She'd been expecting to be summoned by him, a sign of intelligence... and possibly the aim of their initial contact. She'd made sure that he wasn't fatally injured, and thus could be certain that he wouldn't immediately kill her the next time he saw her.

"Why did you stab me?" he asked.

Bianca raised her hands up as she shrugged. "Orders are orders." She wasn't going to make this easy on him. "I don't question them."

"I don't believe that."

"What? That I was following orders? News flash, I'm an _assassin_. People pay me to do much worse than a little stabbing."

"Exactly," said Chris. "If it was just a distraction any demon for hire could have done it. Either you've imagined this scenario yourself, or someone hired you because you can think for yourself which means you know exactly why you stabbed me."

Bianca smirked. It wasn't exactly right, but it was close. "Well, you seem pretty intelligent too. You must know I'm not just going to tell you."

Chris walked out from behind the Book to stand as close to Bianca as the cage would allow. "I can make you talk."

His breath caressed her face and almost sent a shiver down her spine. He wasn't flirting; he was about to torture her. Why was she reacting this way?

Perhaps it was time for Bianca to reveal who'd sent her. Normally she wouldn't flinch when someone threatened her, but this time she was allowed to reveal the information that her captor wanted. In fact, it was apparently an integral part of the whole agreement. But if she revealed it, he'd soon be gone, off to interrogate his mother. Wait- why was that a bad thing?

Bianca shrugged off her feelings. "Luckily for you I'm supposed to tell you who sent me."

Chris scoffed, taking a step back and crossing his arms. He reminded Bianca of his mother. "And I'm just supposed to believe that?"

Bianca shrugged. "She didn't say anything about having you believe me. I'm pretty sure you won't."

"She?" questioned Chris.

"Yes," said Bianca. "Your mother."

Chris barked out an unattractive laugh. Bianca wondered if one produced from good humour would look better on him. "That's the worst 'your mom' joke I've ever heard."

"Well it's the only answer you're going to get from me," she said. "Because it's the truth."

Chris paused. "Say I do believe you," he began. "Why would she send you after me? It was probably just someone who looked like her."

"That's what I said," said Bianca. "And then she blew me up."

"Doesn't look like it hurt you much. My mom's a pretty powerful witch. I think you'd be dead if she did."

Bianca was surprised that Chris didn't know this fact. How had Piper known? "Phoenixes can reconstitute themselves. It's half the reason why we're called Phoenixes."

"Don't look so smug. I can do the same thing."

That wasn't one of the powers she'd heard Chris Halliwell had. She was surprised he was advertising it. Briefly she wondered what someone would pay for that information. Not much, she decided. It wasn't exactly a weakness.

"Anyway," said Bianca. "She said something about you being so focused on magic that the only way to get your attention would be to attack you."

Chris tried to read Bianca. That did kind of sound like his mother. She was always bugging him about not having a life beyond saving other people.

"And she gave me this," said Bianca, pulling the crystal pendant from her pocket. She held it by its string and it spun and glittered.

Chris' eyes widened. "I made that for her. She wouldn't have just given it to you." But there was no way that someone could have stolen that from his mother without her mentioning it to him.

Hearing that, Bianca examined the necklace more closely than she had previously. Its edges were polished smooth and it was warm with the weight of an intricate protection spell. "Nice workmanship. I guess you must really love your mother. Too bad she doesn't seem to love you back."

Chris didn't rise to the taunt, he was too busy figuring it all out. He locked eyes with Bianca. "You have absolutely no idea why she sent you." It was a statement, not a question. "Uncle Coop warned me that she might be up to something, but I never imagined this."

For the first time during the exchange Bianca didn't have all the answers. She took a step closer to the cage wall. "What are you talking about?"

"My mother. She knew. She's trying to get us together."

Bianca was more than a little confused by that statement. "I stabbed you and somehow that translates to romance in your book? You Halliwells are stranger than I thought."

"It's what she said," said Chris, kicking away one of the crystals to let Bianca out now that he knew what he wanted. "And that she gave the pendant to you."

Bianca remained to hear the rest.

"She thinks I don't spend enough time thinking about myself and that to her means I'll never fall in love and will die alone. She'd hate for that to happen to me so of course she'd try her hand at matchmaking which is what Uncle Coop warned me about."

"So she's setting _us_ up?" Bianca pointed at Chris, then herself. This was by far the weirdest job she'd ever taken. She wasn't sure whether to be flattered or offended that Piper Halliwell thought she'd be a good match for her son. "Why me?"

Why Bianca? His mother must have known he was in love with her in his other life. He didn't want to burden Bianca with that just yet. "Well how many other assassin witches do you know?"

Bianca didn't know of any more. There was only ever one Phoenix witch at a time, though she often spoke with her dead relatives. Sure there were bad witches, but they weren't generally for hire. "Well why did it have to be an assassin witch at all?"

"I couldn't be with someone mortal that I'd have to explain magic to. And mom knows I'd never fall for the damsel in distress type."

"Really?" Bianca found herself asking, unable to help herself.

"I would have fallen in love a million times over if that was the case. Not all innocents are butt ugly."

"So I'm...?"

"The complete opposite of that. What I'd look for if I was looking at all."

Why was he looking at her like that? She didn't want to be his dream girl. What would be the point in dating a Halliwell if it wouldn't piss off his mother? Why was she even considering it? Okay, so he was very good looking for a witch. And she admired his intellect... but he was half-whitelighter. Phoenixes had been aligned to demons for so long she may as well be half-demon herself. That was never going to work out. What would their children end up being?

Children? Bianca was definitely thinking about this too much. She needed to leave right now. "You got what you wanted. I'm going to go."

"Wait," said Chris, and she shimmered back in, too curious for her own good. "Don't you want revenge on my mom for this?"

"Revenge?" Actually, that sounded like a pretty good idea right about now. Someone needed to pay for making her feel this way. Bianca smirked. "Count me in."

x X X x

A/N: Sorry if you spotted any errors. I edited this while listening to a podcast.


	3. Chapter 3

**Connections At Work**

**Author's Note: **This is where I start making stuff up about Phoenix witches.**  
**

Chapter 3

Piper couldn't understand it. It had been days since Chris had run into Bianca and he showed no sign of having met up with her a second time. She was expecting him to demand to know what was going on the next day and yet, nothing. Piper never imagined that it would take Chris this long to figure everything out.

Two days ago she'd asked Wyatt about the attack, to see if he'd helped his brother solve it. Wyatt said they'd made plans to chase down the assassin the day after the attack but Chris had said it was handled. Wyatt guessed that as usual Chris wanted to go it alone and had sorted it out while Wyatt was spending time with his family. That was a pretty good indicator that Chris had met with Bianca.

If the Phoenix witch had carried out her end of the deal then Chris must know that Piper was behind it. Piper was regretting not spreading out her potion payment. Now Bianca had no reason to contact Piper and might even have lied to Chris. Why had Piper trusted her? This must be the personal gain consequence she'd tried to pretend wouldn't happen. She should never have tried to trap her son.

But there was no use crying over spilt milk. Piper would just have to fix this the non-magical way and hope that Bianca would tell her the truth.

x x x

A visit with Henry later and Piper had Bianca's current address. It had been hard to explain why she needed a woman's address, but Piper had made some lie up about having met her at the restaurant and wanting to get to know her better. She was pretty sure Henry knew that wasn't the case but he'd chosen to ignore it. He realised that Piper's being in retirement made her a little crazy and he figured that if she was asking him for help, it couldn't be a magical problem.

Bianca lived on the other side of San Francisco from the Halliwell Manor, but Piper was just glad she lived in the same state. With the ability to shimmer, Bianca could live just about anywhere in the world with little inconvenience. As it was, Piper didn't imagine Bianca spent much time at home. She wished for luck and rang the doorbell.

When Bianca opened the door for her she was visibly surprised. That quickly gave way to suspicion. "What are you doing here?"

"Well you told me not to summon you," said Piper. "Can I come in?"

"No. How did you even know I was here? I have an anti-scrying spell over the place."

"And apparently you pay your parking tickets, too."

"So you didn't use magic?" Bianca's brow creased.

"There's this thing called personal gain that I can't quite get around."

"Never been a problem for me," Bianca noted. Piper was pretty sure that personal gain was the only way Bianca had anywhere to live at all.

"Sometimes I wonder if it's all in our heads," said Piper. "Now let me in."

Grudgingly, Bianca stepped aside to allow the elder woman access. The townhouse was not at all what Piper expected. Not that she'd been expecting Bianca to have displayed her athames by the door, but nothing about it screamed 'assassin' to Piper. She'd had a vague idea that Bianca would live a bare existence, with little more than some simple, sturdy furniture- heirloom furniture. It was nothing like the apartment Bianca's mother had kept. This apartment screamed 'bachelor pad' more than anything else. It was all black and chrome, easily cleaned. There was a giant television and an elaborate home gym, though Piper reckoned that keeping physically fit was a job requirement.

"Not what I was expecting," said Piper.

"Of course not. My demon skulls and drippy candles are out being dry cleaned."

"You know I visited your mother's house once. It looked nothing like this."

Bianca's eyes narrowed. "When was that?"

"You must have been about four or five," said Piper.

Once again Piper found an athame pressed against her neck. "You tried to kill my mother!" Bianca's tone was deadly.

"She attacked us first," Piper said. "We just wanted to talk to her."

"Sure you did."

"Things can look different when you're young. A Phoenix had attacked our whitelighter. It was all a misunderstanding."

"My mother would never have gone after the Charmed Ones' whitelighter."

"Like I said: a misunderstanding."

The athame vanished, but Bianca didn't relax her stance. Piper caught her quick glance in the direction of the golden phoenix decorated urn sitting in the fireplace.

"Is that-?" Piper cut herself off, not sure if she should be asking.

"My mother," said Bianca. "And the remains of every Phoenix who came before her."

"How did it happen?" Piper was sympathetic to those who'd lost their mothers early.

"Every Phoenix dies the moment her daughter is ready to take her place."

Piper's hand shot to her mouth. That was not what she wanted for her grandchildren. For the first time she thought it was a good thing her plan was backfiring.

"It's not common knowledge outside of Phoenix circles," said Bianca.

"How old were you?" asked Piper.

"Sixteen."

Sixteen? That was hardly old enough. She'd managed to keep her children away from vanquishes until they were eighteen (a lot easier to accomplish with Wyatt and Melinda than it was with Chris). She'd been helped by the fact that demon attacks were sparse in the twenty years following the battle with Billie and Christy. Piper couldn't imagine her children going out on their own at the age of sixteen. At sixteen Wyatt had broken his back falling from a moving car, Chris' bedroom could have disguised a decomposing body and Melinda was not-so-accidentally blowing up her brothers. They couldn't have survived by themselves.

"Is this the only reason you came here?" asked Bianca, clearly fed up with the personal direction the conversation was taking.

"Sorry. I came to ask if you'd seen Chris."

"You mean besides the time I dragged him from work and stabbed him in the leg?"

"Yes," said Piper. "Besides that time."

"Sure. Heaps of times. I watched him for a week. I was thorough."

"You're not still watching him?" asked Piper.

"What for? I was paid."

"I don't know. Job satisfaction?"

"Look, I saw him that night after I stabbed him. Did what you told me to do."

"And nothing else?"

"We talked."

Bianca seemed even more closed off than usual. Had her plan worked? Was there something to her matchmaking scheme?

"About what?"

"You, mostly."

"He didn't seem angry at all?"

"Look," said Bianca, exasperated. "I don't know why you had me do what I did, and I don't care. I did it. As far as I'm concerned it's done."

"All that statement was missing was a 'does'."

Bianca stabbed a finger in the direction of the front door. "Out!"

"Okay, okay. I'm going." Piper held her hands up in surrender and shuffled out. She was going to have one cranky daughter-in-law. Piper didn't quite regret it.

x x x

Once Piper's car had driven out of sight, Bianca locked up and shimmered out to see Chris. She knew he'd be at the hospital. It was his shift and she only knew that because she'd had to follow him last week. Not because she wanted to know where he would be so that she could randomly bump into him. Nope. She only knew it so that she could avoid him. And that was the only reason why she was checking his schedule right now, too. Just so that she could avoid him.

Bianca was very good at blending into the background. If she wanted you to see her, you'd think her conspicuous in her tight black pants and stilettos, but when the average person looked at Bianca they only saw what they expected to see. That nurse they'd seen a couple of times in the break room, the motorcycle accident victim's distraught girlfriend, the electrician... It meant she could go anywhere any other person could go. In this way she found herself in the back of a hospital room watching Chris stitch up a nasty looking leg wound.

Chris looked amazing, like he was born to do it. Yes, Chris had been born to save lives, but he didn't have to do it like this. He didn't have to be good at this. With so many magical powers at his disposal he didn't need to do anything more than vanquish a demon here and there. But the rest of the time he was doing this. Bianca sighed.

"I know that look," a voice said beside her.

Bianca wondered what the doctor was seeing. "What look?"

The older woman looked out at where Chris was just finishing off. "The one that says, 'I wish I could do that'."

Bianca was confused and studied her companion properly for the first time. She was a doctor in her forties perhaps. Her coat read: Dr Amelia Cho. "That's not what I was thinking."

"Oh? Then what were you thinking?"

"I was thinking about how people can do so many things that they don't have to do. That they weren't born to do."

"Who's to say what we're born to do?" In Dr Cho's world of course there was no such thing as a prophecy that came true.

"The Angel of Destiny," said Bianca, knowing Dr Cho wouldn't take her seriously.

"You don't strike me as the sort of woman who believes in that sort of nonsense."

But Bianca had believed it her entire life. Her mother had told her all about Phoenixes: their legacy, who they were supposed to be. She'd thought her job would be one filled with the glory of trophies and personal satisfaction. Instead she'd gotten a hollow existence, moving like a ghost from job to job. Not living for anything. She was determined to be the last of her line, but a Phoenix couldn't die until there was someone to take her place. Bianca had tested that theory not long after her mother had died. It was her destiny. She'd be the last Phoenix because she wouldn't pass it on. She would never have a daughter.

Only now was Bianca beginning to think that her destiny could be changed. Wasn't there a story about how the Charmed Ones had talked the Angel of Destiny out of taking Chris' father's life? Surely it wouldn't take much convincing for the angel to take hers.

"Looks like he's finished," said Dr Cho. "You should go see your boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend," said Bianca. And he never would be, because he'd never indicated that he liked the idea of being set up with her, or that he liked her and didn't just tolerate her.

"Well," said Dr Cho with a smirk. "You'd better work on that." With that the doctor went to speak with a nurse.

Bianca exhaled, and went over to speak to Chris.

He stared, surprised to see her there, not looking at all out of place. "Hello?"

"Your mom came by to see me," said Bianca, all business.

"You need to quit with the 'your mom' jokes. They just aren't funny."

Bianca rolled her eyes. "I guess I'll have to if you keep making that one."

Chris smirked. Or perhaps it was more of a smile. "My plan worked, then."

"Yeah, yeah," Bianca waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "I had to tell her I'd seen you."

Chris stopped. "You had to? Bianca that wasn't in the plan."

"I wanted her off my back." Bianca was unapologetic. "I tried to give her the run-around but things got too personal."

"Like how?" asked Chris.

"I already had to share with your mother," said Bianca. "What makes you think I'll tell you, too?"

Chris couldn't help feeling hurt, but he covered it. "It might be useful in figuring out what happens next."

Bianca didn't say anything, and Chris went back to work, visiting his patients. Bianca followed and although it looked like he was ignoring her, she knew he was listening when she said, "What do you know about Phoenixes?"

Chris made sure his patient wasn't paying attention as he responded. "Assassin witches. There's only one at a time."

"Exactly," said Bianca. "The mother Phoenix only dies when her daughter is ready to take her place."

"So your mom's dead?" Chris could sympathise, though neither of his parents were dead at the moment.

"When I was sixteen," Bianca elaborated. "A demon followed my mother home so I killed him. She died at the exact same moment, engulfed in flames. I was trying to save her and I killed her."

"Oh," said Chris, unsure how to comfort someone who was a total stranger that you felt you knew better than anyone.

"The worst part is that my mother never would have died. I was so scared that I didn't even think."

Chris placed a hand on her shoulder, wishing he could heal her pain. "I'm sure your mother died happy, knowing you were ready."

"How can you of all people say that?"

Chris was confused.

"I was born to kill people. She died because I killed someone and now every time I do it, I can see her dying."

"Then why do you do it?"

"Because I'm supposed to. What else would I do?"

"Anything," said Chris. "You could live like a mortal. Their opportunities are endless."

"I wouldn't even know where to begin."

"I could help you," said Chris. "If you want me to."

He was looking into her eyes as though all he could see was her soul. Bianca found it hard to tear herself away. Even if he helped her he'd only be doing it for himself. A Halliwell couldn't date an assassin. But a reformed witch? That he could do. Bianca felt sick just thinking about it.

"Come on," said Chris, as he clocked out. "What have you got to lose?"

Apparently her head.

In the moment when they were alone in a hallway, a demon shimmered in, spraying some sort of slime they knew couldn't be good news. Chris directed it back at the demon but it was unfazed. Whatever its effect on them, it had none on the demon.

Aware that magic could be exposed at any moment, Bianca conjured one of the potions Piper had given her and threw it straight at the demon. It disappeared immediately, leaving a pile of dust behind.

Bianca eyed it, strongly reminded of her mother's death. "Well that was unexpected."

"What was that?" Chris asked, staring at Bianca.

"I have no idea. I've never met it before."

"No, the potion."

"Oh," said Bianca. "You mom paid me in Power of Three potion."

Chris had forgotten about that aspect of being an assassin. He hadn't stopped to wonder what Bianca had taken as payment. He frowned. "They don't even let me use those."

"Probably because they know you'll walk straight into danger with them."

Chris had no reply because it was true. When they were younger, his mom and her sisters had basically forced a vial onto each of his cousins and Mel for emergencies. They thought Wyatt didn't need any, and Chris had always gone looking for trouble. They didn't need him to think he was more invincible.

He was surprised Bianca had noticed that aspect of his character, though. She displayed an understanding of how his family worked that only close family friends seemed to have. He wondered how many times his mother had spoken to Bianca before she'd contracted her services. But now wasn't the time to dwell on that.

"Let's go," he said, grabbing Bianca's wrist.

"Where?" asked Bianca.

They stopped in an alcove for a second before continuing on.

"Chris?"

"Shh!" he hissed, then whispered. "We're invisible."

Bianca was surprised. She hadn't heard him cast a spell. Was this another power of Chris' that no one had heard of before?

Together they walked straight into a security room that Chris unlocked with his telekinesis. He let go of her wrist and wandered up to the console as though he'd done it a million times before. He probably had. "I need to erase the footage of us fighting that demon," he explained. Chris easily brought up the correct camera and rewound it a few minutes.

"Wait!" Bianca said as something caught her eye just before she and Chris were about to appear on screen.

Chris let playback continue and he saw it too. From the ashes grew the demon, then it shimmered out.

"That's not good," Chris said unnecessarily. He quickly set up a loop of a blank corridor and grabbed Bianca's hand. He didn't let go until they'd reached the alcove they'd paused in earlier. It was one of the hospital's camera blind spots. The cameras weren't usually monitored, but if anyone thought to check Chris didn't want them becoming suspicious of him.

They made their way out to Chris' favourite orbing spot and Chris took Bianca's hand in his and orbed them back to the Halliwell Manor.

Bianca was dizzy as they landed in the Halliwell attic. "You are never orbing me again."

Chris smirked. "Now you know how I felt when you shimmered me."

Bianca rolled her eyes skyward. "Like that's never happened before."

"Not for years, thank you very much. I still don't know how I didn't notice you were there."

"Guess the great Chris Halliwell isn't the hot shot he thought he was."

Chris ignored the jibe and began flipping through the Book of Shadows.

Bianca used the time to stare at all the knick knacks on the shelves in the room. "Is any of this stuff magical?"

Chris looked up and eyed the figurine she'd picked up. "I don't think so." He went back to looking at the Book.

Bianca opened the potions cupboard. Nothing inside was labelled, but that wouldn't matter if all Bianca wanted to do was cause a little chaos. "I can't believe you don't lock this stuff up. And you let me just wander around here unsupervised."

"Well you haven't done anything, have you?" Chris said, not even looking up this time. There wasn't much point in Bianca doing anything. It wouldn't benefit her if she decimated their potions supply, and it wasn't exactly helpful for her to steal a potion of unknown purpose. "And locking it would take too much time in an emergency."

Soon enough Chris was at the end of the Book... not that he was expecting to find anything anyway. He knew the Book practically back to front, so if the demon wasn't in his head, it wasn't going to be in the Book.

Something about the way it had regenerated from ashes made Bianca think that it might actually be in her family's grimoire. In general there were few times a Phoenix thought something was important enough to write down. Most magical facts were passed down orally with the exception of a few spells and potions that might be misremembered. But there were a few pages on the demons that Phoenixes had encountered on more than one occasion, or those that a Phoenix failed to finish off.

There were many of those in the eighteenth century section from when Lila Firebird had lived. She went down as the worst Phoenix who ever lived. Bianca had always been interested in her because of that and she preferred to think that Lila was merely the most thorough Phoenix, unafraid to admit to her weaknesses. For that, Lila Firebird went from a novelty to a hero in Bianca's book.

"Chris? Are you up there?" Piper called from somewhere downstairs.

Chris didn't want to confront his mother at the moment. Bianca was about to shimmer out so he latched on to her, shuddering as they rematerialised in an unfamiliar room.

x X X x

A/N: So how do you like my version of Phoenixes? I quite like it, but then, I'm the one who wrote it so I'm not exactly unbiased.


	4. Chapter 4

**Connections At Work**

**Author's Note: **One thing I wanted to clear up for everyone: according to my mythology, Phoenixes only have one child and that child is always a daughter. It's impossible for them to have boys.

Chapter 4

Having just tagged along with Bianca, Chris found himself standing in what he assumed to be her living room... if indeed Bianca lived here.

"You're just like your mother, you know," Bianca growled at Chris.

"She tagged along on a shimmer?" asked Chris.

"No," said Bianca. "You came into my house uninvited."

"So this is where you live?" Chris paused and examined the space more carefully. "It's a little... dark."

"What did you really expect?" Bianca was sure Chris had never seen any house she or her mother had ever lived in.

"Warmth," said Chris unapologetically. "Phoenixes were born from fire, right?"

"Ashes," said Bianca. "Phoenixes rose from the ashes. There's a difference."

Chris shrugged. "Close enough."

"Not really," contradicted Bianca. "Now cover your eyes."

Chris was immediately on guard. "Why?"

"Because I want you," she said, a playful expression on her face. "Now."

"Seriously," said Chris.

"I'm going to get my family's grimoire and I don't want you to know where I keep it."

"Just my eyes?" said Chris. "That rules out an incantation, then."

"Just close your eyes." Bianca stamped down on the urge to slice him with an athame.

This time Chris obeyed, though he made a point of listening to Bianca as she moved around the room. "You haven't asked me to move, so that rules out the space I'm occupying."

"Clever," said Bianca.

"You're over by the fireplace." Chris tracked her by her voice.

"Yes," said Bianca once she'd walked into the next room. "I am."

"I don't know why you're bothering," said Chris. "If your book's anything like mine I won't be able to touch it."

Bianca conjured her grimoire, staring at Chris all the while to make sure he wasn't peeking. "True," she said, sitting down on a couch in the room Chris was standing in.

"You didn't even use a spell to stop me from seeing, so you can't care that much."

"Just returning your trust in me," she said as she began to flick through the pages.

"Then why do I have my eyes closed?"

"Phoenixes have always had to look out for themselves. My trust can only go so far." A few pages later, in the early twentieth century, Bianca found it. "Pregnancy demon," she said to herself.

Chris' eyes fluttered open at the strange comment. "What?" He noticed immediately that Bianca had found the book and failed to tell him. "Of course."

Bianca smirked as she locked on his wide awake eyes. "I couldn't resist."

Chris rolled his eyes and sat down next to her. "Pregnancy demon? That's the most stupid name I've ever heard."

"I don't think that's what its friends call it. My ancestors tend to be a little snarky about the demons they couldn't vanquish."

"A little?" Chris wondered as he read the page. It was difficult to glean the useful information between the rude comments about the demon's looks and virility. The author had certainly wondered how it happened that the demon was always pregnant at the time of death and proposed some sort of self-fertilisation. Chris was actually inclined to agree on that matter. "So if we want any chance at all we need to get to it before it gets pregnant again."

"But look here," said Bianca, pointing to one sentence. "She waited right next to it until it reformed but it was still pregnant."

"Well what about before that?"

"Nothing she did to the ashes stopped it from coming back."

"So it's born pregnant?" Chris' brain couldn't quite process that. If it was pregnant did that mean that its baby was also pregnant? How far could they go with that?

"I'm not sure 'pregnant' is the right word for it," said Bianca. "It only seems to give birth at its moment of death so that it's immune to its parent's cause of death."

"That's odd too. I mean, I get why that might work with a potion, but being stabbed? You can't develop an immunity to that."

"So maybe immunity isn't the right word," said Bianca. "But if you stabbed me it wouldn't kill me. What do you call that?"

Chris flinched at the thought of stabbing her. "Can we call it something else then?"

Bianca groaned. "I think you need to take your white coat off, Doctor Halliwell. You're thinking too much. Less logic, more magic."

"Okay," said Chris, and to make the point, removed the doctor's coat he'd neglected to at the hospital. Bianca had distracted him too much. When she was in the room all he could do was look at her.

"Feel better now?" Bianca smirked as Chris seemed to sigh in relief. It wasn't a complete transformation from mortal to magical- Chris was still wearing scrubs underneath- but you'd have to remove half Chris' brain to achieve that anyway.

Chris ignored her comment. "So you threw a Power of Three potion at it, which means it's now immune to that potion... and maybe even the Power of Three altogether." He frowned accusingly at Bianca.

"What? So it's my fault I wanted to finish it off before anyone else walked past?" She was defensive.

"Sorry," said Chris. "I should be mad at my mother. Personal gain leads to problems like this."

Bianca felt strangely defensive of Piper. Perhaps because she couldn't imagine having to live with a cloud of 'personal gain' karma floating over her; never being able to use magic for anything fun without consequences. Not that Bianca did have much fun these days. The closest she ever got was a glass of something alcoholic when meeting clients in demon bars. "Maybe she wouldn't have had to if you'd looked after yourself."

Chris was amazed that Bianca would bring that up. "I thought you were on my side in that."

"Well, I don't like being played," she said. "But nothing happened, so I don't actually care."

"You're just going to walk away and forget about it?" Chris couldn't contain his emotions and they propelled him to his feet.

"Are you really so serious about revenge on your mother? The woman who raised you- who loves you. The woman who made you the man you are today?" Bianca would kill to still have her mother around... beyond a little communing with her ashes, her mother was gone. Bianca would never again be able to touch her.

"Of course I'm thankful to her; she's my mother. But she doesn't seem to understand that I'm not her little peanut anymore. I get to decide what to do with my life."

"If you're so grown up why don't you act like it? Tell her how you feel instead of this stupid revenge plan where all you're really doing is ignoring her."

"I'm denying her the one thing she really wants."

"Yes. _Her son!_ Do you really think she would have resorted to this plan if you just spent a little more time talking to her? And I don't mean about your latest vanquish. I bet she'd love it if you just went to ask her for anything every once in a while." Bianca was emphatic, not even sure where all these emotions were coming from. If she had Piper's power more than a few things would have exploded by now.

Bianca couldn't remember _feeling_ this much in a long time. She'd been angry for a while after her mother died. Upset and scared... but somewhere between her first demon vanquish and the last one she'd forgotten her emotions. She'd forgotten, and all that was left was an empty numbness. But Chris was such an idiot! He made her so _mad_. Almost crazy.

Chris, in return, grew more furious, though he wasn't sure what they were arguing about anymore. The air around him seemed to crack with electricity. Bianca wasn't sure if she was imagining it or if it was one of his powers coming loose. "You act as though you know me and my family. What gives you the right to judge us?"

The thing that was upsetting Chris the most was that Bianca was right. Had she ever been wrong? She had no right to be right when she'd barely known him more than a few days. Almost two weeks if he counted her stalking him before she stabbed him.

"Your mother gave me the right when she summoned me into your attic," said Bianca. "And into this stupid little feud you have going on."

"Shut up about my mother!" Chris couldn't think straight.

"Why?" demanded Bianca. "Too scared to know that she loves you?" Bianca hadn't known love since her mother had died, but before that she understood. She understood that bond that children have with their mothers. And here was Chris treating it as though it was nothing. Worse than nothing. An annoyance.

"That's ridiculous," said Chris. How many times had he heard his mother tell him that she loved him? And each time he'd returned the sentiment.

"Is it? Then why don't you want to talk about her?"

"You don't want to talk about yours," Chris threw back at Bianca.

"My mother's dead! Do you have any idea what it's like to lose your mother? No you don't because your mother is waiting at home for you with dinner on the stove. Your father is probably right there with her. I don't even know who my father is. Or was. He could be dead. Or he could be alive. I could have a million half-brothers and sisters and never know them when I walked past them in the street!" Bianca paused for breath. "Do you have any idea how lucky you are?"

"Yes!" said Chris. "I do. Because I know what it feels like to lose your mother on your fourteenth birthday. I know what it's like to grow up with a brother who terrorises not only you, but the entire world because he's exposed magic and the Cleaners couldn't do anything to stop it.

"I know exactly how lucky I am to have a younger sister and six cousins and both my parents and my aunts and uncles alive. I also know what it's like to feel like you've lost everything and to have to put the world to rights by yourself because there's no one else who can do it and even worse, no one else can come with you. You have to leave them behind knowing that you'll never see them again. I know death and every emotion that goes with it."

"What are you talking about?" Bianca's anger was forgotten in her confusion.

"I'm talking about an alternate timeline I've been dreaming about since the day I turned twenty-three. But they aren't just dreams, Bianca." He fixed her eyes with his stare. "It's all real to me because it happened to that other me. I know things I'm not supposed to know."

"What things?" She stepped closer to Chris as though a lack of distance would make him more willing to talk.

"You, Bianca. Why do you think my mother picked you? It isn't like there's some sort of magical dating website."

"You dreamed about me?" The thought terrified Bianca. It was like he'd taken a piece of her before she could take part of him.

"More than that." Chris raised his hand to trace along Bianca's jawline. She shivered slightly under his touch. "I knew you. I loved you. I made love to you. And then I left you behind."

Chris brought his other hand up and clasped her face between his hands. Bianca wanted to tear herself away and run but she couldn't. He didn't look sane at all. He looked as though he was about to dive headfirst into shallow water. It was too much for Bianca. Too much for her to make sense of.

"Get out," she said quietly.

That seemed to shock some sense into Chris. "What?"

Bianca grabbed his hands and pulled them away from her cheeks. "Get. Out," she repeated more firmly this time, pointing to the door the way she had to his mother earlier in the day.

"I didn't mean anything by it," he said, trying to apologise, to make her let him stay.

Bianca didn't want to hear it. She wanted him gone. She physically pushed him to the door and was glad when he took the hint and shut up and didn't fight her. Shutting the door behind him was extremely satisfying. Bianca vowed never to see him again. It was too much drama that she didn't need.

So why did she feel like crying on the floor when she saw his coat lying discarded on the couch? As though it had a right to be there...

x x x

Piper was sure that she'd heard someone in the attic, but no one was there when she went up. It looked like someone had been, but they'd touched the Book of Shadows so it probably wasn't a demon. With so many of the next generation to keep track of, it could have been any of them besides Mel, the only normal witch in the bunch. Something Piper and her sisters had tried long and hard to convince her wasn't a bad thing. Most days Piper thought they'd succeeded.

Leo was out. Even though he was no longer a whitelighter or an Elder, whitelighters did sometimes come to him for advice. Advice that Leo felt he was more qualified to give after having raised three children. In fact, Leo and Henry were working on this one together. The kid was a runaway from home and into gang trouble because of it.

In these moments by herself, the manor seemed so big and empty, and a little loneliness began to creep into Piper's soul. She felt old and unwanted and considered asking Wyatt's family to move in. She'd let her son move out because he needed to become independent of his parents and aunts, but if the manor was going to be passed from eldest to eldest, now that she and Leo were retired it seemed like the time.

Unfortunately, having Wyatt's family move in would mean swapping one son for the other. If Chris didn't live in the manor, Piper wasn't sure she would ever see him unless she camped out beside the Book of Shadows. She was so afraid of him slipping through her fingers. It was so hard when you'd lost a child once to think about losing that child again. For all that she tried to hold onto him, part of her felt that it was inevitable that she'd lose her grip. To outlive any of her children would be a nightmare, but she'd grieved once for Chris already. She didn't want to have to do it again.

Paige orbed into the kitchen to find her elder sister sipping at a mug of hot chocolate forlornly. "Who died?" she wondered aloud.

"Chris," said Piper.

Paige's heart stopped. "What?"

"I was just thinking about losing him all those years ago."

Paige relaxed. "Don't scare me like that, Piper."

"Sorry," her sister apologised.

"I'm guessing the men aren't back yet?" Paige settled into a seat across from Piper.

"And you would be correct. Do you and Henry want to stay for dinner?"

"We've got dinner plans, actually. Reservations at Apri."

Piper made a face. "I may not work there anymore, but I do still own a pretty good restaurant, Paige."

Paige shrugged innocently. "It's just not the same having a romantic dinner where your daughters and nieces work."

"So it's like that, is it?" Piper smirked.

Paige grinned. "What would we do without a little romance?"

Piper laughed. "Leo and I could probably use a little more."

"Trouble in paradise?"

"No," Piper shook her head. "We could just maybe use a little more variety. That's all."

"Well," said Paige. "I'm not the expert, but Henry and I do this thing where one of-"

Sensing that this territory was not a place she was comfortable with, Piper covered her ears and started singing.

Paige frowned. "I can't believe you're so prudish beyond the age of sixty."

"Well," said Piper. "When you're married to a man who was once an angel it rubs off a little."

Paige frowned. "Well I've been half-angel my entire life."

"It balances out when your other half is demonic," retorted Piper.

"Hey, that's our mother you're talking about."

Piper raised her eyes to the ceiling. "Sorry mom."

"So how's Mel?" asked Paige, changing the subject.

"Aren't you supposed to know? You're her whitelighter." Paige was unofficially everyone in the family's whitelighter, but she was officially assigned to Mel because she was the only true witch.

"Well now that she's older she only ever seems to need me for healing. She hasn't had any demon run-ins lately."

"She's fine," said Piper, answering Paige's original question. "She rang me this morning gushing about the baby."

"You don't see her often, do you?" questioned Paige.

"I don't see any of them often enough. Not even Chris and he still lives here."

"Maybe you should move the Book of Shadows into the open. It's not like we ever have non-magical guests." Piper had never given up on a normal life, but she'd revised her definition. While she'd longed to return to her life before magic, she realised that she could never be so close to anyone who didn't understand magic. She had friends of varying species who were magical and mortal but they all knew about magic, so if ever 'normalcy' was disrupted they understood.

"I'll be custodian of the Book and carry it on my back, demanding the kids give me nuggets of personal information in exchange for reading privileges."

Paige went along with the idea. "The jucier the tidbit the more time you get. What you had for breakfast- two minutes. Why your boss is a jerk- five minutes."

"Share your feelings about a family member- fifteen minutes. And the next half hour's free if you sit through a lecture."

The sisters laughed together for a moment. "You know," said Paige. "I used to think we had the strangest lives, but ever since the kids were born it's just been normal. They coped so well growing up in two worlds... they barely flinched when demons starting coming after them."

"I am proud of them all. I remember how we were at their age and think they're so much more mature and well-adjusted."

"Do you ever wish Grams hadn't bound your powers?"

"No," said Piper. "At least, not for long. I don't think we were ready for our destiny. Grams could have told us anything and we still wouldn't have been prepared. It was better not having to grow up with that. But I think that with the three of us and Coop and Leo we just managed the kids."

"Don't forget Henry," said Paige. "He may not have been much help with the magical stuff, but some of his parolees scared my kids straight."

Piper laughed. "Do you remember when we had him put Wyatt, Chris and Junior in a jail cell and even though they could orb out none of them did?"

"I'm still not sure why."

"That's Henry's greatest parenting secret."

"I'll find out one of these days," said Paige. "He probably bribed them or something."

"Or made a game of it."

In the moment of silence that followed, Piper wondered if now was a good time to bring up Bianca. She did have to tell her sisters some time. She just wasn't sure if it should be together or separately. "How is Junior?" she asked instead.

"Good, as far as I can tell. He mentioned something mundane about buying a new car- an new old car."

"I never really understood his fascination with cars," said Piper. "My boys didn't get excited about driver's licences. They only got them because everyone else was getting them. Chris still doesn't own a car."

"Chris also still lives at home where he can borrow yours."

"Do you think he'll ever move out?" Piper wanted to know her sister's opinion.

"The way he's going now? Probably not. But I wouldn't rule it out. It will probably come out of nowhere just when you and he have given up."

"I did something to speed up the process," Piper admitted.

"Nothing magical, I hope. Have you become the mom in that awful Mandy Moore movie?"

"_A Walk to Remember_?" wondered Piper.

"No. The one where her mom- I think she was Diane Keaton- sets up a profile for her on a dating site. Did you do that to Chris?"

"Not exactly."

"Well, I'm out," said Paige, giving up on guessing. "What did you do?"

"Do you remember Bianca?"

"What? The girl who tried to kill future Chris?" That was still the way they referred to the first Chris they'd met, despite the fact that they were now farther along in the timeline.

"His fiancée," Piper added, hoping Paige would connect the dots.

"Yeah," said Paige. "She broke his heart. What about her?"

"For all that terrible things happened in the future, Bianca was the one good thing that Chris had there that he doesn't have here."

"I'm sure that that's one sacrifice Chris is okay with," Paige said, too logically. "He would have happily wiped himself out of existence. What's one girl who broke his heart?"

"The only girl he ever loved, Paige. I wanted to see if Cathy could do what Coop did for Phoebe when they first met. So I asked Coop about it and he told me that Chris has never loved anyone! No one he's dated has ever meant anything to him."

"That is kind of sad," said Paige.

"He's leading a hollow existence and I want to change that."

Suddenly Paige caught on to what Piper was trying to tell her. "So you summoned her and forced the two of them on a blind date?"

Piper rolled her eyes. "Oh please, like that would have worked."

"I'm guessing the ex-chef cooked up something a little more complicated."

"Well she's an assassin. I sent her to attack him."

"What?" It wasn't Paige who spoke incredulously, but Leo who'd just entered with Henry. "I thought you just talked to her."

Henry looked like he wished he'd walked into the wrong house. "I think Paige and I should go now."

Paige grimaced, but left with her husband.

"Well?" demanded Leo.

"You know our son as well as I do," said Piper. "Do you really think he'd just go out on a date we set him up on? One with an assassin witch?"

"I thought you'd talked her into pursuing him romantically. If he didn't know you were behind it, he'd pay more attention."

"Would he? He hasn't been on a date in months. And even then it wasn't exactly for romantic reasons."

Leo placed a comforting hand on his wife's shoulder. "I wish it was easier for him too. But as his parents we're only meant to guide him... he has to take the steps down his own path."

"I guided him to Bianca. I wasn't going to do any more than that because even if it doesn't work out I'm hoping it will make Chris see that there is more out there."

"And how is this plan working out?" Leo wondered.

"Not great. Chris knows that I'm the one who sent Bianca to attack him, but he hasn't come to talk to me about it. Now I'm worried he's doing something stupid."

"I know you can't have anticipated that, but I really wish you'd at least talked to me before you did it. He's _our_ son. I care about him just as much as you do."

"I know." Piper kissed the back of Leo's hand. "But I was sure this was what he needed. I didn't want to hear you try to talk me out of it."

"So you would have told me when exactly, Piper? After our son turned up dead?"

"I trusted Bianca not to kill him and she didn't. My trust in her wasn't misplaced."

A door slammed upstairs and Piper was immediately on guard. "Stay here," she commanded her husband.

Leo didn't do as she'd told him, but he was prepared to call for his sons if that wasn't one of their family members up there.

x X X x

A/N: And that's what I call conflict.


	5. Chapter 5

**Connections At Work**

**Author's Note:** Thanks for the reviews.

Chapter 5

Chris orbed into his room and seeing the door open he stormed over and slammed it. You just didn't get the same feeling slamming doors magically. He flopped onto his bed.

He'd screwed things up with Bianca big time and he hadn't even realised he'd wanted things to work out. He'd liked spending time with her. She was challenging and always ready to counter his sarcasm with her own. And she was easy on the eyes, too. And then there was that part of his heart that was already in love with Bianca and it seemed to be infecting the rest.

Chris had been surprised to see her in the hospital, but when he realised she wasn't there to kill him, he'd been more than pleased that she'd showed up. He'd liked having her back up when they battled the pregnancy demon. He'd enjoyed tossing theories around with her. He'd even liked that moment when she'd left him with his eyes shut longer than necessary.

But he'd screwed it all up by talking too much and now she must be freaking out. How do you explain to a girl that you were in love with her in another lifetime? That maybe subconsciously you'd been waiting for her- but no pressure.

He'd panicked when she'd said things that hit too close to home. Said things that were too much like what his mother had told him time and time again. He'd thought she'd be on his side. Thought Bianca would be able to understand. She'd all but admitted that she was alone because she didn't want her daughter to end up just like her. Chris couldn't be in a relationship because he was terrified. It was the only thing he'd ever been terrified of.

"Chris?" There was a knock on his door. "Are you in there?"

Chris didn't want to deal with his mother right now so he ignored it.

Piper opened the door cautiously, hands raised in attack mode. Her hands lowered when she made out the scrubs-clad form of her second son on the bed. "Chris, you know you have to answer when I call. I thought there was a demon up here."

Leo stood behind his wife in the doorway, wondering what was wrong with Chris. He hadn't looked this depressed since the time he'd lost a charge.

Piper entered the room and say on the bed, stroking through the tangles in Chris' hair. "Rough day, peanut?" she asked.

Chris pulled away from her touch. He wanted to be alone. He was always going to be alone, why bother with pretences. "I just need to be alone."

Piper looked up at Leo searchingly. Leo thought that perhaps leaving their son alone was the best course of action. "We'll be here when you need us, Chris," he said, indicating to Piper that they should leave.

"I don't think you should be alone right now," contradicted Piper. "You're always alone."

The echo of Chris' earlier thoughts disgruntled him. "You and not wanting me to be alone are what got me into this mess in the first place."

"What?" she asked, nudging him slightly so that he'd roll over.

"You sent Bianca after me," he accused. "And now I can't stop thinking about her."

Piper felt her heart flutter at the acknowledgement that someone was finally getting to Chris.

Leo, not wanting to be involved in this conversation, left the room.

"Is that such a bad thing?" Piper asked.

"Yes!" Chris sat up quickly to emphasise his point. "If we hadn't met I'd still be happily thinking she was a figment of my imagination."

"Wait," said Piper. "You knew about Bianca before you met her?"

Chris looked up at his mother. "Ever since I turned twenty-three I've had dreams about the other me."

"And you kept that from us? Why do you have to be so neurotic about keeping yourself secret?"

"It's not like I was living through them. I still don't know most of what the other Chris went through. But sometimes I'd have a dream and know it was real."

"Oh honey," said Piper. "I never wanted you to have to experience that world."

"Then why send Bianca?" Chris demanded to know.

"Because she's Bianca. She's the reason why you came back in time. You were in love with her. She gave you a future to hope for."

"I came back to save Wyatt and everyone he ever killed."

"Because you wanted to live," said Piper. "But what you're doing now? It's not living, Chris. It's existing; almost like you knew you'd been heartbroken before."

"Does it really matter? Look at this world. It's perfect."

"You don't believe that," said Piper. "In a perfect world you'd let yourself be happy. Do you know how it feels for me to know that you sacrificed everything for this world and can't even appreciate it? You don't even have the one good thing you had in that world."

"Because I have a million other good things. My brother isn't evil. I don't live in fear of him capturing me and torturing me. You're alive. Most of my aunts are alive. I have Melinda. You know Leo didn't stick around long enough for her to exist in the other timeline?"

Piper was in shock. She'd always marvelled at future Chris' ability to keep Mel and whatever happened to her a secret, but if she hadn't existed then there would have been no need. "Those are things we all have," said Piper finally. "But you're the one who got them for us. You deserve the little bit extra that the rest of us have. I'm not saying that it has to be Bianca. I'm saying that it's okay for you to put everyone else aside for a moment and think about yourself. Don't you want to be in love?"

"Of course I do." Chris couldn't look at his mother while he said this. "I just don't think it's the be all and end all that you seem to think it is." He took a breath. "You know there's a part of my mind that has always been in love with Bianca? Part of me always felt like I was cheating on her and the rest of me didn't even think she was real."

"Why didn't you ever tell us?"

"Why didn't you ever tell me about Bianca?" he countered.

"Because I didn't want this to happen. I didn't want you to be confused about pursuing a relationship with her- to wonder whether you had to be in love with her because your other self was. I didn't want you to chase her down if you never did meet."

"But it's okay for you to do it?"

"Maybe I shouldn't have done it," said Piper. "Because I'm not sure it's helped you. But I'm glad I did it because if I hadn't we wouldn't be talking about this."

Chris conceded that maybe he had needed to get all of that off his chest. For all that he was now emotionally drained it was cathartic.

"I think I do want to be in a relationship with Bianca," he volunteered.

Piper smiled fondly at her son. "Tell me about her," she invited.

"Do you know how we first met? I mean, the other me and Bianca?"

Piper cast her mind back to a conversation she'd had with the other incarnation of her son. "The other you filled me in a little. She was working for Wyatt. She helped you escape from him before joining the resistance herself."

"Yeah," said Chris. "The other me seemed to fall pretty quickly after that."

"Things tend to go faster when you think you're about to die," said Piper, thinking of the day Chris was conceived. "But I want to know about you and this Bianca."

"She snuck up on me and shimmered me away from the place where I usually orb after work. I think I subconsciously trusted her enough to pay her no attention."

"Excuses," said Piper. "You just can't admit she got the better of you."

"Do you want to hear this story?" Chris asked his mother. "Because I could just go downstairs and talk to dad."

"I'm listening. I'm listening."

"I looked up into her eyes just as she stabbed me. I recognised her immediately and I sort of thought it was all a dream, but the pain was too real. And then she was gone, just shimmered away."

"I've probably gone completely round the bend, but you make it sound romantic- being stabbed."

Chris frowned. "Of course you would. You're the one who sent her. You owe me for that."

Piper was non-committal. "We'll see."

What had Chris ever done to deserve a mother like Piper?

"Anyway," Piper went on. "That's just what happened. Not Bianca. What do you like about her?"

"She's hot," Chris said bluntly, knowing it was exactly the wrong answer.

Piper smacked him. "I'm still your mother."

Chris tried to answer the question honestly. "She is..." He couldn't find any of the right words. "She's Bianca." He said it as though her name meant everything.

Piper was concerned that he couldn't find a single word. "How much do you really know about Bianca? And how much is the other Chris' memories?" It was always strange talking to her son about his counterpart. It was much easier talking to her sisters or Leo about her two sons in one.

"I know that she's beautiful, and it's easy to say that so I'm starting there. She's a great fighter. And snarky and sarcastic. But she's always serious and focused. She has the worst sense of humour. Everything amuses her, but she never really laughs. The person she loves the most in the world is her mother. She's good at killing, but she doesn't enjoy it. She feels like it's her fate and she can't escape it."

Piper was amazed that he already knew that much. "How many times have you seen her now?"

"Twice," said Chris. "Three if you count the stabbing." He rubbed his leg absently where the wound had been.

"And what more do you know about her from your dreams?"

"That she's an amazing kisser," smirked Chris before turning serious. "That she's incredibly determined and stubborn. That she can be the good person that she wants to be. She's incredibly brave. She'd do anything to protect someone she loves. She likes being morally ambiguous because she feels like being good has too many rules. She'll cross any line at least once..."

Piper liked that Bianca was so like and unlike her own son at the same time. "Do you dream about her a lot?"

"More times than I can remember," Chris admitted. "Sometimes it's the same thing. And sometimes she's in my normal dreams. Sometimes his memories aren't clear. It's just impressions of how he felt when he was around her."

"And... you're sure that what you feel now is your own feelings?"

"Yes," said Chris. "I didn't before, but we just had an argument and then I knew."

"Is that why you stormed in here?"

"Yeah." Chris was a little sheepish now that the conversation with his mother had distanced him from that afternoon with Bianca. "I think I said too much because she was saying things I didn't want to hear. I've probably come on way too strong."

"I'm sure it's nothing some talking won't solve."

"If I can ever talk to her again."

"She'll listen to you," Piper said with certainty.

"How do you know?"

"Because of what you told me about her. She's looking for a way out and that's you. And you didn't say she was a coward."

Chris wasn't so sure, but he was glad his mother thought it would work out. Perhaps it was just his impression because she was his mother and his hero, but it always seemed that things had a way of resolving themselves the way Piper Halliwell wanted them to.

"What were you doing this afternoon anyway?" asked Piper.

"Bianca came to tell me you'd been to see her."

Piper was confused. "Since when are the two of you like that? Did you pay her?"

"No," said Chris. "When Bianca told me you'd sent her I knew straight away that you were trying to set us up. Our revenge was going to be keeping you in the dark."

Piper laughed, relieved. "So that's why you didn't come straight to me wondering what I was up to. You already knew."

"My momma di'n't raise no fool," he said with a straight face. But a smile crept onto it as he thought about Bianca. "We were attacked by a demon at the hospital and we're working together on it."

"Aww..." gushed Piper over-enthusiastically. "My little boy's all grown up. Accepting help on demon hunts without being told."

"She was right there," Chris protested. "If we weren't working together we'd be working separately on the same thing, maybe getting in each other's way. It's just inefficient."

"Right," said Piper. "So is this demon something we should all be looking out for?"

"The Book didn't have anything on it, so we went to Bianca's place to look in her grimoire. And that's when we discovered that its offspring become immune to whatever its parent died of in addition to what its parent was immune to."

"That sounds dangerous."

"Not really." Chris remembered something. "And you owe me another one because in the hospital Bianca used the potion you gave her to vanquish it so now it's immune to that, and maybe even the Power of Three itself."

"Oh," said Piper. "Maybe that's the personal gain consequence."

"And since we argued," said Chris. "We haven't come up with a solution yet."

"Why didn't you mention that earlier?" said Piper, realising that Bianca was already warping Chris' priorities. Before they met there was no way he would ever have come back home to wallow instead of tearing out after a demon. "Who knows when it's going to come after you again!"

"We don't know that it's coming after me."

"Maybe it's going after Bianca, then."

Panicked at the thought of Bianca unable to vanquish the thing, Chris orbed out immediately.

Piper stared at the space her son had been inhabiting a second earlier. "No thanks Chris, I don't want to help you stop a demon. Thank you for asking. I'd rather stay right here."

There was an apologetic jingle in response, but Chris did not return.

x x x

Chris rematerialised to the side of Bianca's town house and battered on the door like a crazy man. He stopped when he realised her neighbour across the street was staring at him. Bianca opened the door and looked at him puzzled. "What are you doing here?"

"I never should have left," he said. "We need to figure out how to get rid of the demon before it comes after us."

"Ah," she said. "Demon talk. I suppose you're just going to ignore the fact that we argued?"

Chris rolled his eyes. "Let me in?"

"I don't exactly need your help," she said. "I already know why it was after us."

"And you're not going to tell me?"

Bianca rolled her eyes. "Fine. Come in. But after we're done with this, I don't want to see you again."

Chris couldn't help his wince. But he put those feelings aside because right now the demon was more important. He wasn't going to argue with her.

They returned to the living room where Chris' forgotten coat was now folded neatly on the coffee table. Bianca's grimoire was nowhere to be seen, probably returned to its usual hiding place. Chris could smell something cooking, reminding him that he hadn't yet eaten. Chris was too polite to mention it, but his stomach had none of the same and rumbled audibly.

Bianca stared at him, then seemed to sigh. "Have you eaten yet? I was just about to."

Chris smiled gratefully. "Thanks."

Bianca doled out two bowls of a thick stew, and they sat in the kitchen eating them, avoiding conversation that would make the situation more awkward. Soon enough the bowls and spoons were in the sink and Bianca was telling Chris about her quick trip to the underworld. Chris felt guilty. While he'd been busy mulling over his feelings, Bianca had been productive. Sure going into the underworld wasn't as dangerous for her as it was for him, but the idea hadn't even crossed his mind.

"A contact of mine managed to figure out that the pregnancy demon was brought out of its food coma by a seer who told it that we'd be the ones to defeat it. I guess it figured it would get us first."

"But why would the seer tell it that?" Chris wondered. "And what food coma?"

"I don't know about the seer, that's a problem for another day," said Bianca. "And the food coma is what it goes into after it eats. One being every hundred years or so unless someone kills it. Now we know we can defeat it, we just have to think."

Chris was still uneasy about the situation. It was in his nature to distrust seers. Especially those who clearly had some sort of unknown agenda. "Maybe the seer actually saw us failing."

Bianca rolled her eyes. "How could the two of us working together possibly fail in killing one lousy demon? It doesn't even have much of an offensive power."

"Overconfidence?" suggested Chris. He knew they were unlikely to fail since neither he nor Bianca had ever failed at this sort of thing before, but it didn't mean it wasn't possible.

Bianca made a face. "So we'll triple-check everything."

"What is its offensive power?" asked Chris.

"The stuff it shoots out slows down its victims so that it can eat them. There's even a counter-potion in my grimoire. Estasia may have been pissed off that she couldn't figure it out, but she was thorough while she tried."

"So we just have to work out how to kill it."

"Or not kill it," Bianca put in.

"What do you mean? We can't just let it go around eating more and more people. Or coming after us at any moment."

"Frankly I think the evolutionary pool would be better off without people dumb enough to be eaten by that thing."

Something that was mere fact to Chris was completely different to Bianca. "I forget you weren't raised the way I was." He wasn't just referring to being a Halliwell. He'd gone to magic school with dozens of other witches and magical creatures who thought similarly.

"That's not what I meant exactly," she said. "I want it gone as much as you do, if for different reasons, but maybe there is no way to kill it. We might just have to incapacitate it."

"Like starve it?"

"That's not likely to happen for a few hundred years but I'm willing to wait if you are."

Chris grimaced at the thought of delaying a vanquish for so long. He didn't really intend to be around that long. Even if he became a full whitelighter after he died.

"I was thinking the opposite," said Bianca. "Stuff it so full it can't do anything."

Chris' brow creased. "Say we find some way of feeding it that I'm not morally opposed to-" Bianca scoffed, but otherwise did not interrupt. "What are we going to do with it while it spends the next few thousand years digesting? And what if it dies? It will be immune to food. We'll have made it more immortal."

"I don't think it can be _more_ immortal," pointed out Bianca.

"It can," said Chris. "Instead of its child coming back to haunt us, it will be the same one."

"But this one is its kid," said Bianca, something dawning on her. "It won't have the previous ones memories. It probably won't come after us at all."

"So what the seer saw has already come to pass," Chris added. "We defeated it, but its kid is still around. Bianca, that means this demon is innocent."

A disgusted look crept onto Bianca's face. "Seriously?"

"You know my family doesn't go after demons that haven't come after it first. It's the only reason why we haven't met before. I would have gone after the last Phoenix years ago, otherwise." That wasn't entirely true. He wouldn't have if he'd known it was Bianca or her mother.

"That's ridiculous," said Bianca. "What about all those innocent human beings you were so worried about a moment ago?"

Chris couldn't fault her that. It had never sat well on him to not go after demons just because they hadn't attacked him directly. But on the other hand, this one was unlikely to come after anyone. Bianca had said one being. If it ate a demon it wouldn't be eating someone Chris deemed innocent at all. It was possible that it would never eat a human. Could he condemn a demon on the sins of its parent?

It was times like these that morality had a lot to answer for.

"Whatever," said Bianca. "Do what you like. _I'm_ going after it. Are you going to stop me?"

Chris sighed. It was the easy way out. Weighing up a few innocent lives and Bianca's against that of the pregnancy demon? There was no contest. "Okay," said Chris. "I'll help you stop it."

"Good," said Bianca and got back to the plan. "Now we have to add summoning it to our list of things to do."

"We still need to put it somewhere," said Chris, leaving behind his moral struggle.

"Its own personal hell," stated Bianca. She turned thoughtful. "I think I read a spell about those." She made a strange gesture in front of herself and her grimoire appeared.

Chris glared at it, thinking back to that afternoon. "You don't even hide it any place that I could reach."

Bianca smirked and Chris wondered what she'd been doing when he'd had his eyes closed earlier. Testing him? He wondered if she'd found him lacking.

The Phoenix flicked through the book until she found the spell. It opened a dimensional portal.

"That's not going to work," Chris said once he'd looked it over.

"Why not?" asked Bianca, defensive. Chris seemed to automatically assume her ideas and magic were wrong and not good enough for the job.

"Because there's no guarantee you're not sending it into someplace populated. It could get out or just terrorise whatever lived there."

Bianca rolled her eyes. He thought too much. "Fine," she said, crossing her arms. "You come up with a spell."

"We need to create a pocket dimension," Chris stated after a moment of thought.

Bianca marvelled at him. "We can't just make another dimension. We don't have that much power." Was there even more to Chris Halliwell than she'd imagined?

"We don't," said Chris. "But I know some people who can help."

Bianca did not like the look on his face. "More Halliwells?"

Chris almost laughed at the expression on her face. "Just my brother and my cousin." But he'd have to keep them unaware that this specific demon hadn't attacked him. Junior in particular wouldn't like it.

"Not your sister?" Bianca questioned.

"No," Chris shook his head. "She forms a Power of Three with a couple of my other cousins."

"Power of Three? I thought only the Charmed Ones could do that?"

"And that's the way we want it to be. My generation rarely use it, but we're all capable of it. You don't really think my mother and aunts would retire if we weren't just as powerful?"

"I guess the twice-blessed and wielder of Excalibur was thought to be good enough."

Chris made a face. "Wyatt's powerful, but the rest of us make up for that."

"I know," Bianca said so easily and honestly that Chris' heart fluttered into being flattered. "If I had to choose to battle one of you to the death I'd pick your brother. I could probably outsmart him. I'm not so sure about you."

Chris smiled at Bianca. She made him feel so differently from any way he'd ever felt before. "So I'd better get them." Chris was about to leave when he realised what time it was. Wyatt would have just gotten the baby to sleep and he didn't want to imagine what Junior and Xita were up to. "On second thought, I think we should save it until tomorrow. It won't be after us, so at least we're safe."

"Besides, all we'd have to do would be to kill it."

"I don't think it will be that easy next time," said Chris. "We lucked out that it had never been killed by Power of Three potion before. Can you really think of some way that no one else would have thought of?"

"Maybe it's only immune to a specific athame. I've got plenty I could try out."

"Want to bet your life on it?"

Bianca frowned. "That thing is barely lethal. It's not going to eat me. If worst comes to worst I'll just shimmer away."

"Just don't summon it without me."

"It hadn't even crossed my mind."

Chris threw her a sceptical look. "Goodnight Bianca," he said finally, hoping that his trust in her wasn't misplaced. So far it hadn't been. And neither had his mother's trust in her.

Bianca smirked and Chris could almost imagine it was a smile. "Goodbye Chris." She said her farewell almost fondly. Or so it seemed to Chris. It might only have been wishful thinking. He walked to the door in a daze, then orbed out where he'd orbed in.

x X X x

A/N: See you tomorrow!


	6. Chapter 6

**Connections At Work**

**Author's Note:** Yup, not much Chris/Bianca in this chapter. But there is Wyatt and Henry Junior and some demon vanquishing. Hmm... chapters are getting shorter from now until the end (which is only two chapters away).

Chapter 6

The first that Chris remembered of his morning shift was his alarm waking him up at four in the morning. As he got ready he cursed his stupidity for not remembering. Then again for leaving his doctor's coat at Bianca's. He grabbed another, then went downstairs and burnt his toast (who had turned the dial up that far?) and spilled his coffee.

He was glad he didn't drive to work (or he'd probably run someone over) and as it was, it seemed it was almost a certainty that he'd expose magic. Chris chanced orbing anyway, and thankfully landed in his intended spot unwatched. He signed in and soon found himself diagnosing a case of the mumps.

A broken leg, chicken pox, dislocated shoulder and missing toenail later, it was time for his break. Which was when Chris remembered the events of yesterday and the plans he'd made for today. He swore to himself and orbed to Junior's office.

Paige's eldest was a civil engineer. He spent a lot of time in the mayor's office, where he was today. Junior looked at Chris through his glasses and groaned. "I don't have time for this today."

"It's not urgent," said Chris. "It can wait until tomorrow."

"But?" prompted Junior, shuffling the blueprints on his desk.

"No buts," said Chris, checking his watch to see how much time he had left in his break.

"Who are you and what have you done with my cousin?"

Junior was suspicious enough of him to try sensing anything odd with his empathic power. "You know that doesn't work on me," said Chris.

"Okay," Junior said, clearing the last of his current work off his desk. Chris took that as his cue to sit down in the wooden chair opposite him. "What's going on?"

"I wanted to tell you and Wyatt together."

"Fine," Junior leaned back and closed his eyes, folding his arms over his chest like a vampire. It didn't look like much, but Chris knew he was having a conversation with Wyatt in his head. "I'll wait."

Chris waited too and a minute later Wyatt strolled in through the office door. He was the physiotherapist with a football team and since it was the off season he didn't have much to do most days even with the addition of the occasional private client. It meant he was free to come and go as he pleased outside of his parental duties.

"What's the big emergency?" Wyatt asked. He stood tall above Chris and Henry Jr, who with their brown hair and pale skin looked nothing like their blond and tanned relative.

"What did you tell him?" Chris asked his cousin. "I told you it could wait."

"You're right," Wyatt said to Junior over Chris' head. "This _is_ serious."

Chris pouted. "I don't chase down every demon the second I see it."

"Yes you do," said Wyatt without hesitation.

"Well this one isn't much of a threat so long as it's eaten recently, and if no one else has killed it since yesterday. Since it's immune to just about everything that's pretty unlikely."

Wyatt frowned. "What that _isn't_ a demon that needs vanquishing immediately?"

"No," said Chris. "Because it's probably just sitting around somewhere digesting." Chris wondered if it had eaten, and if it had eaten someone innocent.

"So why go after it at all?" Henry wondered. As the empath in their Power of Three, Henry was the most sensitive to the idea that demons could have a good side. It was what had led him to not vanquish Xita the moment he saw her and he didn't feel as though it had led him wrongly since. He couldn't just vanquish a demon without feeling it out first and maybe giving it a chance to explain itself.

"It tried to kill Bianca and me," explained Chris.

"Who's Bianca?" asked Wyatt.

"A witch," said Chris, not wanting to get into the fact that she was the one who'd attacked him last week. He'd prefer to never talk about it, but would settle for after the vanquish.

"And you were together why exactly?" prodded Junior, astute as always.

Wyatt's face lit up. "Chrissy's got a girlfriend!"

Chris rolled his eyes. He'd known they'd be like this. "I'll tell you after we get rid of the demon, okay?" He wasn't going to take anything other than 'okay' for an answer.

"Then," said Wyatt raising his hand as though he was back in grade school. "I vote that we go for the sucker right now."

"I still have another four hours of work that I'm about to be late for," said Chris.

"And I have even more than that," said Junior with a frown. He was serious about staying on the job when he could help it. Even this little meeting was probably more than he wanted to deal with.

"Spoilsports," complained Wyatt. "Okay, give us the rundown now and we'll pick up when Junior gets off work."

"Bianca's grimoire calls it a pregnancy demon-" Chris was cut off by chuckles from both Wyatt and Junior. He glared at them.

"Sorry," Junior apologised. "It isn't that funny."

Wyatt quietened too and Chris continued. "At the moment of its death another is born and it's immune to everything the parent was, and also whatever killed it, even if it's something like a stab wound." Chris explained everything he knew about the demon.

"So no matter how you kill it it comes back to life?" Henry clarified.

"Yup," nodded Chris. "With all the people after it over the years it's probably immune to everything we can think of."

"No sense adding more," said Wyatt.

"Exactly," agreed Chris. "So we've decided that the best way to get rid of it is to put it in its own dimension. A new one so that we're sure nothing else is in it."

"Its own private universe," said Wyatt, imagining it.

Junior's face wore a concerned frown. "You think we can do that?"

"Yes," said Chris. "We just need the right spell."

"I'll get it," said Wyatt, preparing to leave. "I've got the most time on my hands."

"Have fun at Magic School," said Henry.

Wyatt's brow crinkled. "How did you know where I was going?"

"Obviously Chris has already looked through the Book of Shadows and you can't make up a spell to save your life."

"Shows what you know," retorted Wyatt. "I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for my impromptu spells."

"You mean the ones that backfire and distract the demons long enough for you to get out of there? I'm sure it's terrifying for them because they can't figure out why you've grown a lion's mane and bunny ears."

Chris laughed as Wyatt sputtered. "Face it, Wy, you're just lucky."

"It's not luck," said Wyatt. "It's good karma and guardian angels."

Chris' pager beeped. "I've gotta go. Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone."

"Yes mom," the other two chorused.

Chris shook his head and left.

x x x

Bianca would never tell anyone, but she was worried. It was well past lunchtime and Chris had yet to show up. She'd assumed he'd be by first thing in the morning, ready to go for it when he was still fresh. Instead he hadn't been by at all or sent her a single message. She wondered if he'd had problems with his family. Maybe they hadn't been willing to help. They'd probably let their supposed morals get the best of them.

At about eleven Bianca had remembered that Chris had a shift at the hospital and was irritated that he hadn't seen fit to warn her of it. He couldn't have expected that she would still be keeping tabs on him. Her annoyance grew when he failed to orb in immediately after his shift ended at half past one.

Finally, at thirteen past five, there was a knock on her front door. The blond, Wyatt, didn't even pause for a hello before he burst in, looking around Bianca's townhouse as though in an exciting new world. Chris and his cousin came in more sedately. The cousin turned out to be a man, which Bianca hadn't been expecting. Most of the Halliwells were girls, keeping with tradition, but Henry Jr was only two and a half years younger than Chris. It made sense for him to be Chris' choice and the one to make up their Power of Three.

Bianca couldn't believe the relief she felt upon seeing Chris alive and well. Had she really been so worried? Over _Chris_? Wasn't it just plain annoyance that he'd wasted her time?

Chris had the decency to look apologetic. "We had to wait until Junior was finished with work," he explained.

His cousin scowled at him. "You said it wasn't urgent." He fixed a more amicable expression onto his face as he held out a hand for Bianca to shake. "I'm Henry, Chris' cousin."

"Oh yeah," Wyatt said, scrambling back to introduce himself. "I'm Wyatt."

"Bianca," she introduced herself. She led them to the kitchen where four vials of anti-slime potion and the summoning spell had been laid out since nine o'clock that morning. "So where are we going to do this?" she asked.

The men looked at one another. "We usually just do this sort of thing in the attic at our house," explained Wyatt.

Bianca frowned. "Doesn't that cause a lot of... destruction?"

"It does," said Chris. "But since we're stronger at home than anywhere else our mothers decided it would be easier if the demons came to us there."

"Plus there's always the object of objection spell if you don't mind dealing with personal gain," Henry put it. He took after his mother in that he didn't mind the risk of the occasional magical mess in the pursuit of magical knowledge.

"That sounds like a useful one to know," said Bianca. "I guess we can summon it into the room upstairs."

"Then lead the way," said Wyatt. "I need to prep the wall."

Bianca frowned. "You didn't say anything about touching the wall."

"Relax, Bianca," said Chris. "It's just chalk and besides, the spell will clean that up too."

"Fine," Bianca agreed reluctantly. She threw them each a vial of potion, snickering when Junior almost dropped his.

"What is this?" he asked, holding it up to the light with a curious expression, lowering his glasses to get a better look. Junior was their trio's resident potion maker. Chris was usually in charge of spells and Wyatt was enthusiasm and brute force wound up like a spring.

"The antidote for the slowing slime it excretes," said Chris. "Do we drink it?" he asked.

"Yes," said Bianca. "But hold off for now. I don't know how long it lasts."

"Great," said Wyatt, eyeing the vial he held suspiciously. "How do you even know it works?"

Chris quickly came to Bianca's defence. He could see that she was offended and more likely to strike out at Wyatt. Chris could already see that the two of them were too different; they would disagree with one another more often than not. "One of Bianca's ancestors came up against this demon before," said Chris, continuing to conceal the fact that she was a Phoenix. "She tried a lot of things and this is one of the few that worked."

"Okay," said Wyatt, willing to believe a witch who had tested something a long time ago. The four of them made their way upstairs.

The room toward which Bianca led them was entirely empty save a wall closet which was empty itself. The floor was wooden as all the floors in Bianca's place were, and the walls were covered in hideous green patterned wallpaper.

Wyatt stared at the walls. "You're worried about ruining the walls?"

Bianca was realising how irrational her previous complaint was. There was just something about the way Wyatt said things that made her want to contradict him immediately. "I thought you might want to cut into them or something."

Wyatt pulled a stick of chalk from his pocket and began drawing a series of concentric circles on the wall.

Junior and Bianca watched, sceptical.

"That doesn't look very magical," remarked Junior.

Chris explained. "We couldn't find the right spell at magic school so I had to modify one."

"Are you sure it works?" asked Bianca.

Wyatt laughed. "You should see him test a spell before he even uses it on a blank piece of paper. It's ridiculous."

"I didn't go through seven years of college to come away unscientific," Chris frowned.

Bianca had already had a taste of that.

"What he means," said Wyatt. "Is that somewhere out there is a very lonely blank piece of paper. But even he wouldn't let me summon a tiny demon to test it further."

Chris crossed his arms over his chest. "Even I have limits."

"Sure," said Bianca, the edge of a smile poking at the corners of her mouth. Somehow that trait of Chris' was endearing rather than stupid.

"Are we all set?" Junior asked once Wyatt was finished with the circles.

Chris ran through the plan. "We open the portal, summon the demon, and give it a little push through."

"You forgot the potion," said Junior, holding up his vial.

"Okay," amended Chris. "The three of us open the portal. The four of us drink the potion. Bianca does the summoning spell then I'll TK it through."

The four of them exchanged glances to see if anyone had any better ideas before each nodded in agreement. The simplest plans usually worked out for the best, and they had so little to fear from this demon that they didn't see how their plan could possibly fail.

"Let's do it," said Wyatt, unfolding the paper Chris had written the spell on earlier.

Chris and Junior went to stand beside him and together they chanted,

_"Open up through time and space,  
room enough for demon's place.  
Seal it shut once demon-filled;  
let none through we have not willed."  
_  
The circles spun in opposing directions like tumblers in a combination lock before they opened out like a vault door. Behind it was only a yellow pulsing light.

With no further communication they each unstoppered their vials.

"Cheers," Wyatt said, clinking his against everyone else's. Bianca and Chris rolled their eyes and downed the potion like a shot of something viciously alcoholic. Wyatt and Henry quickly followed suit. The pair of them then eyed their vials and each other before smirking and throwing them through the portal.

Chris' eyes grew wide, but it wasn't the time for reprimands. They'd already taken the potion and they didn't know how long it would last.

Seeing Chris wasn't going to say anything, Bianca began to read the summoning spell.

_"The demon that I least admire  
will not perish in a fire.  
Instead that foe will settle here.  
It will come; it knows no fear."  
_  
The grotesque beast landed before Bianca and they realised they should have organised themselves better. Wyatt and Junior quickly scrambled out of the way. Had they not moved, the demon would have squashed them.

Chris raised a hand to push it through the portal as it opened its mouth to spray Bianca. Reflexes had her jumping out of the slime's path and though she didn't need it, Wyatt's arm reached out to steady her automatically. The were all expecting the demon to go flying through the portal.

But it didn't.

The demon only rotated, fixing its gaze upon Wyatt and Bianca, ready to aim at them with its slime once again. Wyatt orbed away and Bianca rolled as she considered this new situation.

Chris tried again while the demon was still distracted, but still it didn't work. They were so close and didn't have a contingency plan. The demon was huge. They'd never be able to push it through the portal- a portal that was a foot off the ground- before it ate one of them.

The answer came to Bianca as she fell against her empty potion vial. "The potion," she said, trying to catch Chris' attention. Seeing what she was trying to do, Junior went into the demon's line of sight to distract it, catching a faceful of slime in the process. "It's immune to Power of Three magic. Your mothers' magic." Unfortunately none of Bianca's powers were much use for the menial task of pushing a one tonne beast through a hole. Bianca was about to shimmer out to live to fight another day when Chris yelled,

"Demon!"

Bianca had no idea what that meant, but understood immediately when the demon disappeared in a flurry of orbs and the portal shut behind it.

"Next time," said Wyatt. "We write the spell so that the demon gets sucked into the portal."

"That wouldn't have worked," said Chris unhelpfully. "Spells are Halliwell magic too."

"And why is it immune to Halliwell magic?" questioned Henry.

"Obviously a Halliwell defeated it before," said Wyatt.

Chris and Bianca shared a look. "Here," said Bianca, conjuring the two remaining vials of potion that Piper had given to her and handing them to Chris. "I don't want them anymore. I can't deal with your magic."

Her last statement had a wealth of meaning. It was the end of their relationship, just like Bianca had said yesterday. Chris stared down at the little bottles sadly. "Let's go guys," said Chris.

Henry was still curious, but seeing the look on his cousin's face he remained quiet.

"Wait," called Bianca.

Chris whirled hopefully.

But Bianca only said, "Who's going to clean up this mess?" she indicated the slime, chalk circles, and discarded potion vial stoppers.

"I'll do it," Wyatt volunteered eagerly. Personal gain consequences usually hit Wyatt the hardest so he didn't get to do spells of convenience as often. In this case he could argue that he was helping an innocent. He quickly recited the spell and the scene became unseen. Even the slime remnants on Henry's face and glasses were gone.

"Is that it?" asked Chris, still hopeful.

"Don't forget your coat again."

Frustrated, Chris stormed out. In his hurry he didn't notice that his coat now hung from the coat rack by the front door. Henry and Wyatt looked at each other, unsure of what they'd just witnessed.

"I guess we won't be working together again any time soon," said Wyatt to Bianca. "It was good while it lasted."

"Nice meeting you," Henry added before they too made a hasty exit.

Bianca was left feeling the emptiness of the room.

x X X x

A/N: Hope you enjoyed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Connections At Work**

**Author's Note:** Okay so technically this chapter and the next one are short enough that I could have put them together, but I really wanted to end it here. As a consolation, I'll put up the next chapter in twelve hours instead of twenty-four. But after that the only thing left is the epilogue and I usually like to wait a bit longer before posting epilogues.

Chapter 7

Wyatt and Junior found Chris at P3 having just downed a shot. They exchanged glances. Chris enjoyed a drink every now and then, but Wyatt wasn't sure he'd seen him knocking them back since his rebellious teen years.

Tactfully, Wyatt didn't draw attention to his current behaviour, and instead focused on that which had occurred before. "You said you'd tell us about Bianca when it was over."

Chris looked at his two best friends and sighed, silently agreeing that they needed to talk about this. There would never be a right time for it. "Let's go to the back room," Chris suggested.

Surprised that he hadn't needed more convincing, Wyatt and Junior followed Chris to the area that only their family had access to. Not even the club's various employees were allowed in.

"I'm guessing this is a story about the other Chris," Junior said.

Chris stared. "How did you guess?"

"Anything else would have been easy enough to explain earlier," said Junior.

His reasoning led to that conclusion, but even without the complication of the past they still had to deal with the fact that Bianca was a Phoenix, an assassin, and more to the point, had attacked Chris. It was as good a place to start as any, though. "He was in love with his Bianca."

Wyatt's jaw dropped visibly. "Wow."

Chris went on to explain everything from the other Chris' relationship to Piper's involvement in his stabbing, her heritage and her thoughts on it, the first time he'd left his coat behind, and the vials she'd returned. "Do you know how hard it is to try to be with someone when she is so dead set against it?" He'd never felt this way before and forgot that just because he hadn't, didn't mean no one in his family had never experienced it.

"Yes," said Junior without hesitation.

"Relationships aren't new to us, Chris," Wyatt said, for once sounding like the older brother. "That's why we know it helps to talk about them."

"Or listen," said Junior. "Xita's a demon, remember? She wouldn't give me the time of day even though she'd already decided to stop killing humans. She was so afraid of herself she couldn't trust anyone. She fought against me every step of the way but I fought back because I knew she was the one I wanted to spend my life with."

The fact that Junior could make it work with a demon gave Chris some hope, but there was a nagging uncertainty. He was scared to take the next step without knowing if Bianca wanted to take it with him. "But I'm not sure if Bianca _is_ the one," said Chris. "I mean, I think I am. And then I don't."

"You loved her in another lifetime. If that doesn't mean soulmate I don't know what does," Wyatt said. "I wish I could have been that sure about my wife."

Sometimes, Chris really did envy Wyatt. Everything seemed so easy for him. Chris had to mull things over for hours before coming to the same conclusion that Wyatt would have in an instant. "I'm doubly unsure because of that other life," said Chris. "I might only be in love with her because of the other me."

"Does that really matter?" asked Wyatt. "It's still a real emotion. Does it matter where it comes from? Does it matter why we love people?"

"It's a real emotion based on someone who no longer exists. I may as well be in love with a dream. I thought I _was_." Chris wished he hadn't had to leave the alcohol at the bar.

"Love isn't logical," said Junior. "And you can never be completely sure."

"Or," said Wyatt, playing to his brother's logical side. "You could get to know this Bianca. Catalogue her differences and you'll know."

"So far she isn't any different," said Chris. "Except that she isn't in love with any version of me."

"But," said Junior. "If that's the only difference..."

"It might not be a difference at all," concluded Wyatt.

"Did you see how she treated me? I was just some guy who happened to know a little about demon hunting."

"She's just upset over what you argued about yesterday," said Henry. "You can't really expect her to get over it without the two of you talking. And couples fight. It doesn't mean they aren't meant to be together. Look at Wyatt and Amanda."

"We're better than fine," protested Wyatt.

"Apologise," Junior continued, ignoring the blond. "Work on it. We can't give you better advice than that."

"Woo her," added Wyatt.

"And how do I do that?" Chris wondered. Thirty-five years old and he'd never learnt the art of dating.

"Use what your other self knows to your advantage," said Junior. "I'll bet he knew everything."

Great, thought Chris. He'd have to take his cues from a guy barely more than half his age. "But knowing too much about Bianca is why we're on the outs," he said. "I think she thinks I'm some sort of magical stalker."

"Then go generic," suggested Wyatt. "Flowers. Chocolate."

"A shiny new athame to add to her collection," put in Junior.

"That's not very romantic," argued Wyatt.

"She's an assassin," Junior pointed out.

"One who doesn't really like doing it," said Chris. "I think I might go with Wyatt on this one."

"Yes!" cheered Wyatt as though his team had won a world cup.

Junior gave Chris a look that said it all.

"But maybe it's okay that I already know her favourite flower," said Chris.

The boys smiled and nodded in agreement.

"Okay," said Wyatt. "Now that we've got the emotional stuff out of the way- let's party!"

Junior snorted. "I don't think your wife will like _that_ very much. You've been gone all day."

"You are right," Wyatt said. "I'll leave you two dudes to live it up." He orbed out.

"Do you want to go back out there?" Junior asked Chris, looking uncomfortable, but willing to do it for his cousin.

"Nah," Chris shook his head. "You know I'm not really into that."

"And I'd rather not without Xita."

"Thanks for your help today," said Chris. "And I don't just mean with the demon."

"You're welcome," smiled Junior. "Just paying you back for all the times you've helped me. And not just with the demons."

They shared a brotherly embrace before each orbed their separate ways.

x x x

Bianca opened the door warily, half expecting it to be a Halliwell she'd never met before. But she didn't really think any of the Halliwells were couriers.

"Delivery," he said.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Flowers," he said, showing her the cellophane wrapped pot plant he held.

Bianca knew they must be from Chris. She couldn't help the small smile that slid onto her face as she signed for them. She tipped the man.

"Have a nice day," he said as he left.

Bianca took the package to the kitchen and slowly unwrapped it. Poppies; her favourite. How had Chris known? And he had to have known. Poppies were usually associated with death. The average person wouldn't send someone else poppies. They'd send roses or tulips or daisies. Normal flowers. Cut flowers.

These were in a pot. If she took care of them they wouldn't die. They'd be around forever. Just as Bianca was about to get some water for them, she spotted a red envelope among the blooms. She fished it out and noticed her full name printed on the front.

The text clicked all the pieces into place. Chris had known who she was before he'd met her. She'd known who he was, but he was a Halliwell, knowing who they were was a matter of life or death if you ever ran into them. But she was just the last in a family of witches. Assassins, yes, but Bianca was pretty sure they didn't keep track of all the demon assassins in the underworld. It just wasn't worth the time. So how had he known? It was just one of the things that didn't add up about Chris Halliwell. Chris was a mystery that Bianca was reluctant to solve. She wasn't sure she'd like what she found, but at the same time the idea that there was something unsolved niggled at her.

She opened the card and read it.

_Bianca,__  
Our relationship has been odd from the start,  
so I hope you don't mind the almost normal gesture of flowers.  
I'm sorry. __I want to explain everything so that we can move on together._  
_Consider this a last message from me if you don't reply.  
- Chris_

It was an odd little note. As well as having to contend with a lack of space, Chris hadn't been able to make mention of magic and that was so much a part of what they were that a note sent via mortals could never be able to say anything the right way. But it wasn't about what Chris had said- or even what he'd sent. It was about what he'd done, what he couldn't say in words.

Now, when Bianca was willing to pretend they'd never met and were never going to meet again, Chris was saying that he wasn't. He was saying that no matter how weird their relationship began he wasn't willing to give up on it. He'd put the ball squarely in her court and now she had to be the one to make the decision.

Could the two of them really get over all the obstacles in their paths to be together?

She refused to have children and how could Chris agree to such a thing? A man whose family was the foundation of who he was and who he would be in the future?

She would probably never die, so even if they did have a relationship, what would be the point if after he died she would remain?

She was still an assassin at the core of her being. She'd probably never be comfortable amongst his family because their values and culture were so different from the ones she'd grown up with. She especially didn't think she'd ever be able to get along with his mother despite the fact that she was the one who'd pushed them to be together.

But for all of that, she knew that Chris understood her. Despite their differing upbringings, the two of them were similar. They were both serious about their jobs. They got each other's silly jokes. They each understood what it was like to fulfill magical destinies and to live up to magical reputations. They both loved their mothers and placed their families foremost, and were supposed to leave behind a magical legacy.

Bianca had never put together a list of qualities she wanted to find in her perfect man, she wasn't prone to those sorts of fantasies. But if she had, she had a feeling that Chris would have them all. He was intelligent, independent, and strong, capable of taking down the average demon easily. He was magically powerful, seriously good looking and even the appropriate height. Judging by his last message, he also knew when to push and when to back off.

As she considered, Bianca realised that she'd already made up her mind. Chris had made his gesture. It was time she made hers.

x X X x

A/N: Judging by the timing of reviews, I'm going to guess the next chapter's already up for most of you.


	8. Chapter 8

**Connections At Work**

**Author's Note:** Hooray for horribly cliched endings. Consider yourselves warned.

Chapter 8

It had been a week since Chris had last seen Bianca. Five days since he'd sent her the flowers. Five days, and she hadn't sent anything back or come to visit him at home or at the hospital. This was not the outcome he'd been looking for and it had affected everything he'd done over those days.

The other doctors and nurses at the hospital had all noticed something. They gossiped behind his back. They'd never done that before. It was like being back in high school again- or worse, at magic school where his family's reputation had preceded him everywhere.

And it wasn't just his day job that he was screwing up. He'd gone straight after a demon without checking through the Book of Shadows first and had spent twenty-four hours being tortured by it. It had taken the combined efforts of Wyatt, Henry, Mel, Penny and Patty to get him out. But the torture was barely a blip compared to Bianca.

His mother seemed to think the entire situation was her fault and she'd been guiltily cooking and cleaning all week. Only the fact that Chris had explicitly told her not to, kept Piper from sneaking back to Bianca's place and demanding an explanation.

Chris knew that it was okay to mope for a little while. But he also knew that it couldn't go on forever, so he gave himself a week after the flowers were sent. After that he would give up Bianca. And he would give up his moping. He couldn't hold on to hope. That had bad idea written all over it.

But truthfully, Chris had given up after two days, and that was why he was more surprised than relieved when Bianca walked into his bedroom two days before he'd promised to give up, just as he was slipping into bed.

"Your mother let me in," she explained.

"So she's probably listening at the door," he said.

Bianca turned to check, but no one was there. She shut the door behind her. "I brought your coat," she said, draping it over his desk chair.

"Thanks," he said. "Is that all?"

"No," said Bianca. "You remember how a seer sent the pregnancy demon after us?"

Chris was glad his hopes weren't up. All she wanted to do was talk demons. "What about her?"

"I've been looking for her over the last week. I found her today and I wanted to know if you wanted to come with me to see her."

"Oh," said Chris. That was unexpected. He'd hardly given a thought to why the seer had told the pregnancy demon about them. But now that the answer was so close his curiosity was piqued. All thoughts of sleep flew out of his head. "Just let me get changed."

"I'll wait for you in the attic," she said before leaving.

Chris dressed quickly, removing the wife beater he'd been planning on sleeping in and replacing with a long-sleeved t-shirt. He put on dark jeans and his usual underworld traversing boots: thick leather and steel-toed. He added a black jacket and went to face Bianca. He'd wanted to fix his hair but hadn't wanted Bianca to think he was so image conscious.

Bianca was waiting in the attic and stood when she saw Chris. "Ready?" she asked, extending a hand toward him.

And even though he'd sworn he'd never willingly travel by shimmer a long time ago, Chris found himself taking her hand. "Ready." And then the attic was gone.

x x x

They reappeared in one of the underworld's many cavernous hallways. Chris followed Bianca through the nearest archway, through a curtain of some sort of plant. It led to a small room just big enough for the seer. The room was bare of furniture and decoration and Chris wondered if the seer ever slept. The only thing in the room was a woven rug that the seer knelt on. Each seer saw differently and Chris wondered how this one's visions worked.

"Welcome," she greeted them with a smile surprisingly devoid of evil motives. She raised an arm and indicated that they should sit on the mat with her.

It was then that Chris realised their hands were still joined. He let go so that it would be easier for them to maintain their balance as they sat. Chris sat cross-legged, but Bianca copied the seer's pose on her knees.

"Well aren't you going to say anything?" the seer asked.

"We're conserving words," said Chris. "You already know why we're here."

"I may be a seer," she said. "But I don't see everything."

"You don't need to see everything," said Bianca. "You sent the demon after us so that we'd come to you. We're here so it's your turn to speak."

"Very well then," the seer said, raising her hands and projecting images onto the cave walls.

To her left was an image of Chris at about sixteen walking out of his high school. On her right was an image of Bianca leaving a building. She was about twenty-one. They both walked in the direction of the wall behind the seer's head. The backgrounds joined and the projected Chris and Bianca walked straight past one another, neither giving the other a second glance.

"The fates speak to me sometimes," the seer said as the scenes on the wall changed. It was about two years later. Chris and Wyatt were in a restaurant with two girls. On the other side Bianca was just coming in. She walked right past Chris' table to pick up a take out order and once again neither noticed the other. "They tell me things I should be seeing."

Chris watched fascinated as his projection sat in the park by the Golden Gate Bridge. A second after he left Bianca sat down on the opposite end of the bench. If he'd stayed a moment longer they would have been sitting next to each other.

The next scene Chris knew was after his twenty-third birthday. Bianca had her serious face on and Chris supposed she was off to kill someone. Why that someone was on his college campus he didn't know. Chris remembered he'd been going to see a friend and he'd been sure he'd seen Bianca out of the corner of his eye, but she'd disappeared before he could be sure. Here he could see that he'd shimmered into a locked room and was staring down a man with beady eyes. In the hallway she'd shimmered from, the projected Chris was looking around for her.

"It was long past time that you two should have met," the seer stated.

Chris thought back to his other life. When he'd met Bianca the first time he was twenty. It was fifteen years beyond that now.

Bianca didn't really understand. "So you sent the demon so that we'd meet?" The seer nodded. "You were too late," said Bianca. "You and Chris' mom should really form a club."

The seer hadn't known this, but so prompted, saw what Piper Halliwell had done. "You see!" she said, triumphant. "We are only picking up fate's work. It is meant to be."

"What's meant to be?" asked Chris as yet another near miss occurred on the walls. He was twenty-nine there. "Why is it so important that we meet?"

The seer smiled and though it held no malice, Chris didn't like the look.

Bianca didn't either. She knew she wasn't going to like what would come next.

"Your offspring will unite the magical world."

Bianca and Chris stared at one another. The walls went black, then an image of Bianca holding a baby appeared. Then the baby grew and so did Bianca. It was a boy who bore a startling resemblance to Chris at that age. He reached out a hand and Chris saw an older version of himself take it. Then the boy grew up again, but the Chris on screen remained the same age before disappearing off screen with a Bianca who did look older. The boy talked to demons and good magical creatures alike and all of them bowed or otherwise showed respect as he aged again.

"That's impossible," said Bianca, scowling at the seer.

"I see the truth," said the seer.

"No!" Bianca shook her head. She turned to Chris. "We're done here."

Chris couldn't protest before Bianca grabbed his arm and shimmered them into her apartment. She dropped his arm and began pacing her living room. Chris looked on, smiling when he saw the pot of poppies sitting in the centre of the coffee table.

"It's impossible," Bianca repeated, growing more distressed. "I was old! The baby was a boy!"

"Just because it hasn't happened before doesn't make it impossible," Chris found himself saying. "Look at Wyatt and me."

Bianca fixated on him, startled to see him there. For him to see her like that. "This is all your fault."

"What? That you might be happy?"

Bianca paused, daring to hope. "Did I look happy?" She couldn't remember.

Chris nodded. "And beautiful." The visions had washed away any doubts he might have still had about Bianca.

Bianca looked at Chris, then. Really looked at him. She stared right into his eyes, trying to reassure herself in their incredible depths. "I can't believe I never saw you before."

Chris shook his head. "I can't believe _I_ never saw _you_ before. I was looking. You had no idea."

"What do you mean?" Bianca knew that whatever Chris said next would thrill and terrify her.

"There's a lot you don't know, Bianca," said Chris. "A lot my family has been trying to conceal from the general public since before I was born."

"Are you not really a Halliwell?" wondered Bianca.

"That's not it." Chris shook his head, shuddering at the thought of not being biologically related to his family. "I was looking for you because part of me has always been in love with you."

"You think some romantic drivel is going to win me over?"

"It's the truth," said Chris. "The world wasn't always like this. Just before I was born Wyatt was turned evil. At twenty-four he ruled over all the demons in the underworld, decimated this city and exposed magic. Everyone was terrified of him."

"Does this fairytale have a happy ending?" interrupted Bianca.

"I know it's hard to believe, but it's true. That Wyatt let our family die- the parts of it that existed, anyway- The only good thing left in my life at that point was you. But we had a plan. I'd go back in time and fix everything. And that's what I did and I know that the only reason why he risked everything, even his own existence, was to be with you. Because he wanted to be able to have a future with you."

Bianca blinked, slightly overwhelmed. "You just switched points of view there. Are you and the other you the same person or not?"

"That's what I'd like to know," said Chris. "I grew up in this world where Wyatt isn't evil. But I have some of the other Chris' memories and sometimes they feel like mine, but mostly they're just like dreams or stories someone told me."

"The other you was in love with the other me?" Bianca sought clarification.

"Yes," said Chris.

"And you... what do you feel about me?"

"I feel like I know you and like I don't know anything about you. But I want to know you better. I want to know more. I want you to know me. I want to tell you everything. Everything I never told my family."

"I want that too," admitted Bianca. "But I'm afraid I'm going to have to give myself up to be with you."

"Never," Chris promised earnestly, taking Bianca's hands in his and staring up into her eyes. "I'd never ask you to give yourself up for me. And I'd never ask you to stay the same forever. But maybe what you think makes you isn't it. Maybe you aren't that person. Who do you want to be, Bianca?"

"I want to be myself."

"And who are you?"

"I'm a Phoenix."

"That's what you are, not who you are."

"I'm..." Bianca couldn't finish the sentence. "I don't know who I am."

"I don't know who I am either."

They looked into each other's eyes and saw.

Bianca squeezed Chris' hand tighter. "I think I can do this," she said.

"Do what?" asked Chris, a little breathless.

"Be with you," said Bianca. "And be myself."

"Really?" asked Chris, a hopeful gleam in his eyes.

"Yes," said Bianca with a smile. "Let's do this."

Chris stood and kissed Bianca on the lips for the first time in this body. It wasn't anything more than a press of lips to lips, but it was the sealing of a deal, a promise to try. Though neither of them knew who they were they'd work it out together.

x X X x

A/N: That's the last chapter. The epilogue will be up in a day or so if I don't decide to drastically rework it based on reviews.


	9. Epilogue: One Year Later

**Connections At Work**

**Author's Note:** And here's the epilogue. I may or may not consider writing side stories/a sequel. Except I've half-forgotten what's meant to happen after this... besides the obvious.

Epilogue: One Year Later

Chris wiped his sweaty palms on his dark jeans. He was going to do it. Things with Bianca had gotten off to possibly the weirdest start in the history of relationships. It had been uphill and downhill ever since then because of their differences and sometimes because of their similarities. Bianca would complain that he was trying to change her into a goody two shoes Halliwell. Chris tried to convince her that she already was.

Bianca had never killed a human being in her life. Not even a bad witch and even Chris couldn't attest to that. Bianca said that was because it was easier when you could pick and choose who to kill without emotional involvement. Chris pointed out that that was emotional involvement. Chris had to have emotional involvement before he killed someone... even the pregnancy demon. He still felt a little guilty over the fact that he'd banished the pregnancy demon when most of the time it was completely harmless.

But those were his morals. He had to live with them. But Bianca didn't like them and if they wanted the relationship to work she had to live with them too. She thought it was wrong of the Halliwells to only go after those who attacked them, or those close to them. It was selfish and not considering the bigger picture. Chris was starting to agree, which Piper Halliwell did not like one bit. Who was Bianca to tell them what was selfish? Piper and Bianca were two strong and stubborn women who couldn't help clashing, and causing a strain on Chris and Bianca's relationship. Piper couldn't get over her unwillingness to let her son go and take charge of his own life.

It was why Chris was finding this particular task so difficult. His mother was in her bedroom, though Chris wasn't sure what she was doing. But she was home and his father was out and this was really something he wanted to tell her without Leo around. She had to know first.

He knocked on his parents' bedroom door. A 'no orbing into bedrooms' rule had been established in the Halliwell house early on in Chris' life. It was one rule he'd never broken beyond the occasional cry for help.

"Come in," Piper called. She was sitting on her bed, brushing her hair out. It was no longer the dark brown colour it had been in her youth, but it was still thick and long. Chris had loved it when he was little, always running sticky fingers through her hair. Piper had hated it of course, but had never cut her hair. She'd even let it down more often just for him.

Chris watched her from the doorway for a moment and she let him.

"Still just as fascinated by my hair as you always were," she said. "I'm surprised you never grew your hair out yourself."

Chris shuddered at the idea. He'd inherited his mother's hair and it would likely look the same if he ever did grow it out, but it was just wrong. "Evil Wyatt's hair was long. I know I don't look like him but I've never wanted to."

"You and your brother look more alike than you think."

Chris had heard it before when he had teased Wyatt about not looking like a Halliwell when he was a kid.

"So what's up?" Piper asked, setting down her hairbrush and patting the space beside her.

Chris took the invitation to sit and stared at the family portrait hanging on the wall. It was new, with Wyatt's youngest barely born. There were Piper and Leo seated in the middle. Wyatt and Amanda behind and to their left. Chris in the middle. Mel was standing beside her husband to their right. Piper was holding Mel's daughter, and Leo Wyatt's newborn. Wyatt's toddler was standing between Piper and Leo, beside their knees.

"Thinking about Bianca?" Piper asked, seeing his gaze fixed on the picture. "She'd add a little more symmetry to the photo, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Chris found himself agreeing before the real meaning behind the question sank in. "Wait, how did you know?"

"You're my son," Piper said as she had so many times before. "And you've been living here so long I almost think I know you better than Wyatt and Mel."

"Don't let Mel hear you say that," said Chris. If he'd thought he'd had insecurities having Wyatt as an older brother, Mel's were doubled. She was a powerful witch but in the end she was only a witch. No matter how much the family tried to include her and keep from rubbing their other powers in her face, she still felt insecure, even with the spoiling being the only girl and the youngest gave her.

"I miss Mel," said Piper. "I think I'm finally empty nesting."

"I still live here," said Chris.

"But not for long, right?" said Piper. "It's what you wanted to talk to me about, isn't it?

"Yes," said Chris. "I'm going to propose and I'm hoping she'll say yes."

Chris hadn't confided in Piper what he and Bianca had learned from the seer a year ago. He'd only told Wyatt because he and his brother had never been closer in his life- his two lives if it came down to it. Piper only thought they were dealing with expectations of Chris' past life, not the predictions of a life still to come. It was hard to live knowing what was to come. How did you ever know what was real and what had to happen? What if you only went along with things because you thought you had to? When did you know when to fight against destiny? To argue until you worked out another way, no matter what everyone else said?

It felt right to Chris, to be with Bianca. He could only hope that she felt the same way.

"The world may not be ending," said Piper. "And I know that even if this doesn't work out you'll have more chances at happiness, but I am also sure that Bianca is going to say yes. I also know she'll probably never consent to live here, which means I'll be losing you."

Chris was vaguely amused by his mother's ramble, though he had no idea what brought it out. "You won't be losing me."

"She'll say yes," said Piper again. "I know it. She'll be reluctant, but she'll say yes because she wants to be with you and she wouldn't do anything to jeopardise that. But you still won't be living here."

"I hope you're right," Chris said.

Piper wondered what she could do to give her son a little extra confidence. In the past year she'd fought with Bianca and didn't agree with half the things she said, but she was good for Chris. He remembered himself more often, and by extension his family. She wanted the two of them to work out even if it meant giving up a little of Chris herself. "Do you have a ring?" she asked.

Chris shook his head and Piper stood, going to her jewellery box. "I think Bianca would want to pick out her own," he said, seeing what his mother was doing. "She wouldn't take something of yours."

The idea was vaguely offensive to Piper, but she hadn't been intending to give up anything of her own. She slid open the secret compartment and removed a ring she hadn't touched since she'd placed it there thirteen years ago. "It isn't mine," Piper said as she handed the ring to Chris who examined it intently.

"What is this?" Chris asked. It felt familiar, but he didn't know how.

"Do you remember how a bunch of stuff reappeared on your twenty-third birthday?" It hadn't been much, only the clothes and pocket junk Chris had had on him when he arrived in the past.

"This is from then?" he asked. It was clearly an engagement ring. "But did that mean...?"

"It was Bianca's engagement ring. He proposed. She said yes."

"Then why was it in the past?" wondered Chris. He was keeping things from his mother, but he'd never guessed there were things she was still keeping from him. "Was Bianca here? Did she leave it behind?" But if she'd left it behind...

"Chris told me she gave it to him to remind him of what would be waiting for him in the future if everything went to plan."

Chris let the words sink in. This was what his other self had wanted... for him to propose to Bianca.

But Piper wasn't finished telling the story. "She came back to get him on Wyatt's orders."

Chris' head shot up. "You met Bianca?"

"Briefly," said Piper. "Your Bianca wasn't lying when she said she saw me try to kill her mother. Except that I wasn't exactly trying to kill her. We were looking for future Bianca because of what she'd done to the other you."

"Wait. What? I think you need to tell this story from the beginning."

Piper nodded. "I guess it first started when I saw future Bianca attack future you..." She told the story from the club to Bianca's mother's apartment to the future and Wyatt's murder of Bianca. Bianca's last act was to give Chris back the ring. "So I can't say it will bring you luck either way," said Piper.

"Whatever it is," said Chris. "It will be right." This one time he was going to see what destiny had to say about Bianca.

x x x

Chris had Bianca meet him in their spot, a small part of the garden at the Golden Gate Bridge by the maze where they'd really first met on the bench where they'd nearly first met. Since then they'd visited here on more than one occasion, drawn to the spot. Chris had wondered if there was something actually magical about the place but as far as he could tell the only magical thing about it was the two of them. In a way it made it more special for them.

Chris had Bianca's ring in his pocket and had stuck his fingers in so many times to check that it was still there that he feared poking a hole in the fabric and losing it. If Bianca noticed how nervous he was, she didn't say anything.

"I know we've had our troubles," Chris began. Why hadn't he practised this part? He'd only practised the words, not the set up. "But I like to think that the good outweighs the bad."

"So do I," said Bianca. "Or I would have been long gone."

"I love you. Part of me always has, but after the past year the rest of me fell in love with you. I don't want to live my life without you." He paused. Here came the hard part. "I want to marry you. I want you to marry me." He pulled out the ring and held it up for her to see, going down onto one knee. "Bianca, will you marry me?"

She looked stunned. "I wasn't expecting this, Chris." She was almost angry. He could see it in her eyes. "You're asking me here? You're asking me now?"

"What's wrong with here and now?" He looked up at, eyes wide.

Bianca opened her mouth but shut it again when she couldn't find anything wrong with it.

Chris looked into her eyes pleadingly.

"Okay," she said. "Yes, Chris. I will marry you."

Chris smiled as he slid the ring onto her finger and sat down on the bench beside her again.

"Perfect fit," she said, looking at it. "It's perfect."

Chris guessed the ring was lucky after all.

x X X x

A/N: Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing. You made it easy for me to post this.


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